My Favorite Themes - Part XII

Score: Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events by Thomas Newman (The Shawshank Redemption)

About the film: After losing their home in a fire, the Baudelaire children end up with a new guardian: actor Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), who is less interested in their well-being than he is in the fortune they are to inherit. This is a lavish and entertaining adaptation of the popular books. Though Carrey Carreys it up a bit too much as Olaf, he is an effective villain, ably matched by Emily Browning, Liam Aiken and Kara & Shelby Hoffman as the children.

Title: “Count Olaf”. The string and percussion melody, featured in “Chez Olaf” and “Verisimilitude”, seems a perfect match for the character’s duplicitous manner. The violin playing in the latter track is particularly enjoyable.

Other themes of interest: This is one of those scores that’s more atmospheric than thematic. However, I was able to pick out a few motifs: two piano melodies, one representing loneliness (“One Last Look”, “The Baudelaire Orphans”) and the other showing the children a glimmer of hope in their situation (“Resilience”, “The Letter that Never Came”); a sort-of ‘danger motif’ on strings leading to a James Horner-like horn swell (“Curious Feeling of Falling”, “Hurricane Herman”); a music box theme for the family that once was (“VFD”); a nervous, chirpy tune for Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep) in “Interlude With Sailboat”; a flute and plinking string melody for the children themselves (“The Bad Beginning”, “Lachrymose Ferry”); a somewhat bouncy melody that seems to suggest moving on to a different chapter of life (“The Reptile Room”, “The Wide Window”). Okay, so maybe it’s more than a few.

Availability: Released on Sony Classical, it should still be readily available.