Finding Neverland

Just one year after P J Hogan's delightful live action film version of Peter Pan we have Finding Neverland, a fictionalised account of how J M Barrie came to write his most famous play, with Johnny Depp as the man himself. Largely received well, the only complaints surround the softening of certain aspects of Barrie's life, turning it more into real life fantasy than a searching biopic. Jan A P Kaczmarek isn't perhaps Hollywood's most high profile composer, but has cropped up on a range of projects from the adultery thriller Unfaithful to the horror of Lost Souls. Here the composer is on much more delicate and whimsical ground, although just a little of the darkness of those earlier scores might just have made this one a bit more interesting.

Finding Neverland starts strongly with the delightful Where is Mr Barrie? which suggests a light hearted playfulness, with a that a little European quirkiness. The children's chorus verges on overkill, but as an occasional decoration, works surprisingly well. Cues that feature this style make for the score's most memorable tracks, but much of the album is rather more low key. Unfortunately, Kaczmarek makes things rather too soft and pleasant, coming across as a more thinly textured variant on James Horner's gently whimsical style. Nice for a short while, but there is a nagging lack of grit to the drama. The seemingly endless piano solos (which bring to mind Michael Kamen's lower key work) bog the album down in their frilly niceness. Fortunately, the occasional sombre moment - The Marriage and The Play and the Fight - are a nice antidote, but rarely suggest any real depth.

There isn't anything inherently wrong with Finding Neverland, it's a very pleasant listen and would make a solid 40 minute album, but at almost an hour, overstays its welcome with insufficient variety of tone or pace to sustain almost an hour. For some reason, and without wishing to seem too disingenuous to Kaczmarek's efforts, I couldn't help but think what Alexandre Desplat might have brought to the material. The evidence of Girl with a Pearl Earring and Birth suggest he could have injected some real drama and fragility to offset the overt niceness. If all that sounds like a big downer on Kaczmarek's effort, then it's only fair to point out that it is an attractive and tuneful score, but one that leaves the nagging feeling that too much of the real drama has been held back for the sake of a warm, musical glow.