THE LOST CHILD

MARK McKENZIE

Rating:

Original Review: It's quite an amazing career that Mark McKenzie is building for himself, especially considering the fact that it has only been around six years since he stopped being a full-time session orchestrator and started writing for himself. Now, it seems, with every score e writes, he just gets better and better. Durango was lovely. Dragonheart II was lovelier still. His score for the new Hallmark TV movie The Lost Child could well be his best yet. A dreamy, unashamedly romantic, heartbreaking string and piano score that swells, swoops and swoons with every lick of the orchestra, it's a score which transports you into another world. Fans of lush orchestral romance will be jumping up and down with delight at the sounds on offer here.

The film is directed by Karen Arthur (who previously made another TV movie with a sensational score, The Staircase, with David Michael Frank), and stars Mercedes Ruehl and Jamey Sheridan in the true story of a woman who discovers that she is, in fact, a full-blooded Native American with Navajo heritage, and who was adopted into a new family while she was small. Eager to rediscover her roots, the woman actively seeks out her Navajo family - but inadvertently brings to the fore the problems, setbacks and clashes two different cultures face when brought together in this way. At the time of writing, The Lost Child has not yet been seen in the UK, and in fact opened to lukewarm reviews on TV in the USA when it was aired in November. McKenzie's score, however, has been lauded throughout the soundtrack community as one of the highlights of the year's musical offerings. McKenzie himself has stated that he believes it to be his own best score to date.

The best things about The Lost Child are not, as one might expect, the themes, but the way in which McKenzie expresses them through various gorgeous instrumental solos. In many cues, a light piano opening gives way to soft, reflective oboes and clarinets or evocative acoustic guitars, all of which are underpinned by a deep, rich bed of strings. The way in which these elements combine and weave together throughout the score is nothing short of magnificent, and the transitions between the various solo performances are seamless. This is an example of top quality orchestration at its finest, and is obviously the work of a master craftsman when it comes to utilising the full extent of an ensemble; the fact that he was so regularly employed by the likes of Marc Shaiman and Danny Elfman in the 1980s and early 90s is testament to his ability.

The orchestral suite which opens the score presents each of the score's main themes, which range from introspective and sentimental to wide and spacious. Thereafter, the various themes play off each other in subsequent cues, from the light and delicate 'Adopted into a New Family (Main Titles)' to the dreamy 'Aunt Mary's Wisdom' and the masterful combination of wood flute, piano and strings in 'Weaving Vision' and 'You're the Love of My Life', two of the score's highlight tracks. 'A Hug and a New Home' opens with a particularly striking harp solo, an instrument which is far too often reduced to playing glissandi in the background, but which has a beautiful range when utilised properly. The piano element of 'The Horse' is clever, conveying a sense of playful movement, and then there are the real heartbreakers: 'Kinaalda Celebration' 'Please Don't Get a Divorce' and 'Dancing Transformation', all of which initially seem unsurpassably beautiful, but which somehow manage to ascend to another plain altogether during the course of the cue.

At times, The Lost Child recreates the passion of Horner's Legends of the Fall, while at others it has the same soulfulness heard in the aforementioned The Staircase. However, throughout the running time, the score upholds the original voice of Mark McKenzie, who is fast becoming one of my favourite young composers. Despite the brevity of his filmography, the quality of his work speaks for itself, and I for one hope that his career veers away from the TV scene and onto the silver screen very soon.

Track Listing: Running Time: 43 minutes 05 seconds

Intrada MAF-7091 (2000)

Music composed by Mark McKenzie. Conducted by Adam Stern and Chris Ledesma. Performed by The Northwest Sinfonia. Orchestrations by Mark McKenzie. Recorded and mixed by Armin Steiner. Edited by Chris Ledesma. Album produced by Mark McKenzie and Douglass Fake.

Cinemusic Online
Filmtracks: Review by Christian Clemmenson (***)
Moviemusic Dot Com
Movie Wave
Score!
Scorelogue


Home Page | Reviews A-M | Reviews N-Z | Composers | Links

Movie Music U.K is designed and maintained by Jonathan Broxton (c) 2001. All opinions and views expressed on these pages are my own and are in no way intended to reflect those the University of Sheffield. All photos and album artwork used on Movie Music U.K. are only for the non-profit making promotional purposes and no copyright infringement is intended.