The Man in the Moon

Man in the Moon stars a young Reese Witherspoon as a teenager in love for the first time and is directed by Robert Mulligan who made the classic To Kill a Mockingbird. Although not given an especially wide release, it appears to have garnered good reviews, Witherspoon already noted as an accomplished actress. I have something of a soft spot for gentle and folksy scores like this. The plaintive simplicity of gentle strings, woodwind and acoustic guitar can sometimes become a little dull, but in the right hands the results are charming - one of the finest of recent times is Horner's Spitfire Grill, which is as lovely as they come. Of course James Newton Howard is no slouch and even though The Man in the Moon is before he really hit the big time, the results are pleasing.

There are two ingredients to Howard's score. The first is introduced in Dani Brings Court Water, with chamber sized orchestrations, highlighting - unsurprisingly, perhaps - strings and woodwind, with plenty of gentle and spacious harmonies and a quiet sense of drama. The second first appears in Back Door and actually turns out to be the more prominent and oft repeated idea; led by acoustic guitar, it is more upbeat and playful, working well to present the film's more joyful aspects as well as suggesting time and place. The quiet cues are fairly similar in style, while the guitar based ones reprise the main theme, or variations thereon. The only track to really change direction is Court's Accident, which comes as something of a shock with piercing, turbulent strings and, more curiously, a little mandolin in between. One wonders how the scene plays in the film, but Howard's music is very striking on its own.

For some reason, the End Credits appear about two thirds of the way through the album, but if they weren't designated as such, it wouldn't be immediately obvious they weren't part of the rest of the underscore - there is certainly no huge orchestral climax, just a plaintive finale. In any case, Graveyard makes for a sombre and understated way to close the album. Of course, from a technical point of view, there isn't a great deal to The Man in the Moon and even at half an hour, it could be argued that it's little repetitive. There's certainly none of the variety of styles that Thomas Newman might have brought to the subject, but for all that, it isn't really long enough to get boring and there's enough flexibility in Howard's base materials to keep it interesting.