What You Need to Know: Alexandre Desplat is a refined, classically trained composer. At least that what he sounds like on every single score I've heard of his. His work typically is dramatic with a flair for the whimsical, thus he was a great choice for a film like "
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." With that said, perhaps he was too good a candidate for the job.
Desplat's score offers flashes of brilliance. Sadly, these flashes pass by too quickly. In what starts off as a strong, captivating album, 'Benjamin Button' gets too serious and overly dramatic by the time the score reaches its final destination. Along the way, the brief spots where Desplat excels doesn't last long enough to give this album a designation of greatness. Instead, by the end of the engagement, I found myself burned out with dramatic underscore.
In listening to this score, it's rather interesting to follow Desplat's lead with the progression of the music. The early segments of the soundtrack offer music that is a bit more sweet, if a bit mysterious, and represents the birth of the "baby." As the score moves on, it becomes more mature in tone and Benjamin heads for "adulthood." For me, the early portions of the album had the most to offer. Indeed, when Desplat keys up the orchestra to delivery energetic rhythms and fanciful notes, the soundtrack is all that I expected it to be. When the music reaches the points of serious drama, that's when it started to tail off for me. Granted, it should tie-in well with the direction of the story on screen, but when heard on its own, some of the luster is lost.
The score concludes in a low-key manner, leaving behind the mysterious tug and gentle awe of the score's earlier moments. When this sense of discovery and originality is lost, the soundtrack becomes a serious, dramatic entry that falls just a bit short for me.
