A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

Back in the early 1990s, Cliff Eidelman seemed like the one up-and-coming film composer who was really going to take the world by storm and hit the big time, with enormous orchestral scores for Triumph of the Spirit, Star Trek VI and Christopher Columbus: The Undiscovered Country.  I'm not quite sure how or why, but at some stage - perhaps he was just trying to avoid being typecast - he went on a run of scores for chick flicks and then promptly disappeared almost altogether.  At the time, his fans were frustrated with all the chick flicks he was doing - competently well, but not the type of thing to set the blood racing like a full-bodied orchestral work.  Of course, today, his fans would give their right arms for any kind of new score from the particularly talented but curiously unemployed composer.

The score is absolutely what you might expect to find in a movie about four girls who became friends in the pre-teen years and remained friends through their lives, telling all their shared passions and sorrows, a kind of female version of Stand by Me perhaps.  The main theme is beautiful, as sprightly as what Elmer Bernstein may have written but perhaps even lighter and dreamier.  It's a good job it's beautiful too, because it is heard a lot over the course of this (brief) album.  Usually heard by a piano with simple string accompaniment, the orchestra does sometimes swell, and those moments are difficult to resist (with the finest possibly coming in the opening cue for the main title, and the finale "Rest in Peace, Johnny").  There are also a few minutes of more modern music, with Thomas Newman-style percussion making a surprise appearance in "Secret Meeting" and "Spirits are Here".  Of course, the moments of sadness receive particularly melancholic music, fortunately never becoming remotely saccharine (which is probably what separates the score from something Rachel Portman writes for this sort of thing), always remaining admirably restrained.  Occasionally the music becomes more overtly dramatic, particularly in the dark ending of "The Pact".

Now and Then is a beautiful, gentle, tender piece of music, not nearly as substantial as the scores which made Eidelman famous, but fine nonetheless.  Anyone who loves scores like Alan Silvestri's Forrest Gump or Elmer Bernstein's The Cemetery Club will surely find much to admire, as of course will fans of the composer's other scores for this genre.  Despite the movie not being particularly successful, almost a decade old and having a considerably higher-profile song compilation "soundtrack" as well, the score album is still available from many places, so I'd pick it up while you can.

Tracks

1. Main Title (3:05)
2. Remembrance (1:57)
3. Secret Meeting (2:11)
4. On the Swing (1:26)
5. It's My Mom (2:32)
6. Spirits are Here (2:17)
7. Sam's Dad Leaves (1:56)
8. It's a Girl (1:48)
9. Roberta Fakes Death (1:26)
10. Best Friends for Life (3:07)
11. Pete Saves Sam (2:29)
12. The Pact (3:10)
13. No More Sceances (1:44)
14. Rest in Peace, Johnny (4:22)