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Review of Younger & Younger (Hans Zimmer/Alex Wurman)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you'd be amused by hearing Hans Zimmer humorously force a touch of Ennio Morricone out of his electronics for this airy, zippy comedy score of surprisingly European tilt.

Avoid it... if only 17 minutes of Zimmer's likable, but not spectacular synthetic music on album cannot justify a remainder from his assistants even though the soundtrack is surprisingly cohesive as a whole.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Younger & Younger: (Hans Zimmer/Alex Wurman) An arthouse film from Bagdad Cafe director Percy Adlon that debuted during the Cannes Film Festival in 1993, Younger & Younger went largely unnoticed in the mainstream despite a stereotypically eccentric performance by Donald Sutherland in the lead and a young Brendan Fraser as his son. Their family owns an odd self storage facility in America that has many quirks, from a mysterious old pipe organ deep within to a collection of clients that spans all walks of life. Sutherland's character runs the place as if it were an amusement park, treating his customers as though they were royalty. When the loyal wife to whom he has been unfaithful dies of a heart attack, he begins to suffer from dementia that causes him to hallucinate and see progressively younger versions of his wife. He eventually falls in love with her once again (albeit with her apparition) and the tale concentrates on the wholesome character interactions that accompany the main character's re-discovery. The project remains one of the more obscure in composer Hans Zimmer's career, especially among those works that were released commercially on album. It wasn't uncommon for the ascending composer to take assignments like Younger & Younger at the time, for he had proven a keen ability to score such topics on minimal budgets by applying his synthesizer arrays as a replacement for an orchestra. Ever since the remarkably lively and organic-sounding Driving Miss Daisy caught the attention of the industry, he was called upon to deliver similar results. While obviously exhibiting a different cultural flavor than that earlier success, Younger & Younger offers its film and Zimmer collectors another opportunity to hear the composer generate a significant amount of vivacious energy out of his usual, one-man ensemble. He did receive some help on this production, though, with Alex Wurman stepping in to provide some of the music oriented more towards source usage. Wurman had been an assistant to Zimmer for several years, contributing additional music to several of the composer's high-profile scores of the early 1990's. He would go on to earn his greatest fame in subsequent years for his music for the popular documentary March of the Penguins. Together with another assistant, Bob Telson, original music was penned for the Wurlitzer organ in the story. The coordination of all of these contributions into one cohesive listening experience needs commended even if the result isn't spectacular.

While the general sense of bright optimism in Zimmer's tone for Younger & Younger will remind listeners of Driving Miss Daisy, I'll Do Anything, and Green Card, the score arguably has the most in common with the composer's later As Good As It Gets. There is a certain amount of lightly keyboarded romance in Younger & Younger that will remind collectors of Zimmer's music of half a dozen other scores of this era, but the heart of this particular work exists in a comically European comedy style that sounds like an intriguing blend between Rachel Portman and Ennio Morricone's light-footed ideas for Mediterranean locales. The lengthy "Vorspiel" suite offers Zimmer at his most playful, likely paying tribute to Morricone (with whom he has always had a fascination) with sprightly rhythms, wild accordion, tapping percussion, plucked synthetic strings, and an alternation between saxophone and traditional woodwind tones common to the region. The latter half of this cue switches to pompous string chops and faux xylophone under fake oboe (or clarinet... they bleed together in the sampling process) similar to Portman's comedy material of the 1990's. With extremely slow pacing, Zimmer's themes tend to blend into the ambience of the instrumentation, though the same ideas in the opening suite are carried over into the other composers' contributions. Wurman's material is intermingled on the product but maintains both Zimmer's instrumental tone and his themes, so much so that many casual listeners may not notice a difference. Zimmer's recordings do seem a bit fuller, though, especially in the synthetic vocal backing of the main theme at the end of "Roses," the accelerated simulated plucking in the middle of "Lazy Afternoon," and the saxophone sound over an As Good As It Gets-like movement late in "Ghosts in Love." In the material written or arranged by Wurman, "My Organ" will remind you of your local carousel and a Latin influence yielding to eerie simulated vocals highlights "Disco!" The Telson piece "Show Me Your Face" receives a melancholy vocal performance and a lengthy instrumental reprise. Interestingly, all of the music credited to Wurman and Telson contain instrumental or thematic connections to Zimmer's material, so outside of the obvious "Vorspiel" at the outset of the album, you'll have difficulty determining any break in the cohesive listening experience. Sure, the score definitely sounds cheap in some of its later tracks on the product, but the pizzazz of Zimmer's explicitly credited 17 minutes of music easily carries the rest. Don't approach this soundtrack with high expectations and you might be rewarded by hearing Zimmer do what he occasionally loves to do: humorously force Morricone out of his electronics.  ****

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 38:53

• 1. Vorspiel (8:27) • 2. My Organ* - performed by Don Jon Vaughn (1:47) • 3. Roses (1:40) • 4. Lazy Afternoon (3:42) • 5. The Morning After* - performed by Don Jon Vaughn (1:41) • 6. Ghosts in Love (1:14) • 7. Penny From Heaven (2:04) • 8. Show Me Your Face** - performed by Donald Sutherland and Lisa Angel (8:05) • 9. Rabbits* - performed by Don Jon Vaughn (2:14) • 10. Disco!* (3:46) • 11. Show Me Your Face (Reprise)** (3:59)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes a picture of Zimmer but no extra information about the score or film.

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