This is obviously a well-directed and well-acted film that loses much by its lack of a good score to hold everything together and "spot" changes in mood.
The one composer that came to mind that would have been perfect for this type of film was the French composer Georges Delerue. He could have lifted this film into the stratosphere of emotions.
Unfortunately he died the year before this film was released. George Fenton's score was one of the most anemic I've ever heard and it does nothing to carry the film.
But there are other issues here too. For a film like this, theological debates should have balanced the more domestic/sentimental scenes. There should have been debates throughout (on pain, on the existence of God, on theodicy, on the value of human suffering, etc.) I don't mean "intellectual" debates, but the kind of conversations that must have been routine among Lewis and his colleagues at the university, more like bull sessions.
Instead the film meanders along, often without focus, and valuable film time is wasted on showing the little boy mesmerized by an attic, and similar scenes that seem pointless.
Despite her Oscar nom and reviews that praised her performance, Debra Winger's performance seemed perfunctory, but blame must also go the screenwriter for not giving her part more substance.
One can't praise a film simply for its good intentions and risk-taking in an age when people fire guns in a movie 5 minutes after the movie begins. The movie needed some "muscle."
A powerful score could have provided it, but also a screenplay that balanced the romance with serious theological debates over pints of beer.
The one composer that came to mind that would have been perfect for this type of film was the French composer Georges Delerue. He could have lifted this film into the stratosphere of emotions.
Unfortunately he died the year before this film was released. George Fenton's score was one of the most anemic I've ever heard and it does nothing to carry the film.
But there are other issues here too. For a film like this, theological debates should have balanced the more domestic/sentimental scenes. There should have been debates throughout (on pain, on the existence of God, on theodicy, on the value of human suffering, etc.) I don't mean "intellectual" debates, but the kind of conversations that must have been routine among Lewis and his colleagues at the university, more like bull sessions.
Instead the film meanders along, often without focus, and valuable film time is wasted on showing the little boy mesmerized by an attic, and similar scenes that seem pointless.
Despite her Oscar nom and reviews that praised her performance, Debra Winger's performance seemed perfunctory, but blame must also go the screenwriter for not giving her part more substance.
One can't praise a film simply for its good intentions and risk-taking in an age when people fire guns in a movie 5 minutes after the movie begins. The movie needed some "muscle."
A powerful score could have provided it, but also a screenplay that balanced the romance with serious theological debates over pints of beer.