• Composed by Alexandre Desplat
• Amazon pressed CD-R / 2009 / 43:24

Alexandre Desplat moves away from the generally serious fare he has been tackling of late to turn his attentions to Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia, mixing the tales of Julia Child (one of the first American celebrity chefs) with a modern-day woman (guess her name) who tries to cook all of Child’s recipes.  A light and fluffy film – so Desplat wasn’t necessarily an obvious choice, but having listened to the score – yes, of course he was the right choice.   The composer brings a really delightful French charm to the film, and this is probably the closest he’s come to sounding like his countryman Georges Delerue.  With delightful themes, some light jazz and – of course – a waltz or two, it’s completely lovely.

While one may have become accustomed to Desplat’s scores having real meat on the bone, this one is much more like a tasty vignette.  It’s deliberately that way, of course – not every score can be a weighty one!  Picture it as a sugery counterpart to Desplat’s The Upside of Anger – or perhaps a Parisian version of George Fenton’s wonderful opening piece from Ephron’s earlier film You’ve Got Mail.  It will not go down as one of the great Desplat scores, but it will go down very tastily indeed!  Weirdly, it’s only available as a pressed CD-R from Amazon (or as a download).   *** 1/2

Buy from amazon.com