Good Will Hunting: Music From The Miramax Motion Picture
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 toGood Will Huntingdoesn'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