Good Will Hunting: Music From The Miramax Motion Picture

Description

Movie soundtracks are chancy in that the music is often geared to specific parts of the film that are meant to evoke concurrent emotions; many don't hold up apart from their cinematic context. The trend of the past few years has been to gratuitously traipse down memory lane, with the convenient stance that a hit parade of '70s funk will lend an otherwise bloodless film some street cred. Thankfully the soundtrack to Good Will Hunting doesn't strive for fake urban cool; this film about white, working-class Bostonians gets a mostly white, working-class sound. The soundtrack effectively mirrors the half-filled desires and lives that the film capitalizes on: restlessness, ennui, doubt, and unrequited love rule here. Elliot Smith contributes the most, and the best, songs, beautiful weepers that outshine Danny Elfman's somber original score, which makes only a few appearances. --Alan E. Rapp