Music Composed by Thomas Newman
Rating: ***

Ron Howard is not someone I would call a subtle director. Ron Howard is not, truth be told, someone I would even call a good director. But Ron Howard is occasionally someone I would call a smart director. Smart because as saccharine and superficial as his films always are, Howard at least often has the good sense to employ people in them who can add the depth and restraint that Howard himself is personally incapable of. Multi-layered performances from actors like Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchet, and Martin Landau have often been the saving graces of films that would otherwise be more fit for the ABC Family Channel than the cinema. For the longest time, Howard has neglected this consideration for his films’ music and relied on James Horner, a composer whose affinity for unabashed sentiment makes a for a cozy bosom buddy with Howard’s hackneyed directing (though Horner’s reserved score for the otherwise hideous A Beautiful Mind was a step in the right direction). Cinderella Man, with its schmaltzy feel-good underdog message and Irish backgrounds would seem like the perfect fit for Horner, but apparently Howard finally grew tired of paying multiple times for the same score. At any rate, Howard’s decision to work with Thomas Newman was easily his most inspired in a very long time. Like the film’s cast, Newman gives Cinderella Man the depth and restraint it so desperately needs, painting a frank and emotionally urgent portrait of Depression-era desperation without derailing into Howard’s hokey cliché territory.

Thomas Newman

The score operates along very similar lines as Newman’s Shawshank Redemption, with a slow stoic build to grand and inspirational cathartic finish. The difference is that unlike Shawshank, Cinderella Man isn’t intent on making you suffer to get to that cathartic finish. While the score is restrained, it’s rarely less than melodic, blessedly devoid of the low-key aimlessness that sometimes weighs down Newman’s scores. Perhaps it’s the effect of filling Horner’s shoes, but there’s a genuine sense of warmth and hope (however restrained) that pervades even into Newman’s bleakest passages. His main theme is one of his finest, a poignant portrait of stoic perseverance in the face of despair. He doesn’t overuse it (though when has Newman ever even bordered on “overusing” a theme?) but he doesn’t neglect it either, bringing it into the center only when the score seems to need it the most (as in at the close of the otherwise-bleak “Hooverville Funeral”). There’s also a more gentle and tender string-heavy theme for the Crowe’s wife (“Mae”), and a melancholy, piano-driven lullaby (“All Prayed Out,” recalling the music box theme from his Lemony Snicket score) – both are beautiful reminders of how exquisite Newman is when he waxes lyrical.

Yes, as with any Newman score, there are a few colder and more violent moments (“Corn Griffin”), but they’re far milder and less jarring than usual, and tactfully add variety to the score without awkwardly disrupting the listening experience. And of course we have the arbitrary Celtic jig that Newman incorporates a few times. While not particularly striking, it at least carries a tougher and harder edge than Horner’s standard Celtic fare, even if it doesn’t come anywhere near the magic Newman created with his brief Irish excursions in The Road to Perdition.

But the real wallop comes at the end of the score, where Newman lets loose the restraint and unleashes the grand orchestral splendor that made him famous so many years ago. The climatic “Big Right” delivers the awe-inspiring power that we heard in the title track from Shawshank Redemption and “Swim Together” from Finding Nemo, but even that piece is bested by his grand finale, the titular “Cinderella Man”. Transposing his main theme into a triumphant major key and uniting it with Mae’s theme, Newman unleashes all the bittersweet lyricism he can muster. It’s a piece worthy enough to join the ranks of his beautiful finales from Shawshank Redemption and Meet Joe Black, and like those pieces, gives the score an emotionally satisfying catharsis without resorting to maudlin overkill. It would be the perfect way to end the album, but for some reason an extended version of the jig follows in a rather anticlimactic close to the score.

I’m not entirely sure why the fan reaction to this score has been so lukewarm. I realize that the album isn’t perfect - the arbitrarily dispersed period songs are irritating as always (this time they’re even edited into the score tracks, making it impossible to gracefully program them out), and the score doesn’t honestly give us anything we haven’t heard from Newman before. But it’s hard to fault Newman for that when the finished product is so rich and powerfully affecting. Following on the heels of the excellent Finding Nemo, Angels in America, and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Newman seems to be on a grand winning streak that doesn’t look like it will be ending any time soon. If Cinderella Man lacks the outlandish ambition of these preceding scores, it makes up for it with its earnest warmth and purposeful execution (the album is short, leaving little room for any filler). The score is almost guaranteed to resurface come Oscar time (unless Newman’s upcoming Mendes collaboration, Jarhead, bumps it form the competition), and is easily the best straight dramatic score the year has seen so far.

Music Composed and Conducted by Thomas Newman; Orchestrated by Thomas Pasatierie Orchestra; Recorded and Mixed by Tommy Vicari and Armin Steiner; Produced by Thomas Newman and Bill Bernstein; Availability: In print; Label (Catalogue): Decca Records, (B0004561-02); U.S. Release Date: May 24, 2005

01. The Inside Out (1′20)
02. Shim-Me-Sha-Wobble (1′03)
Performed by Miff Mole and His Molers
03. Mae (1′16)
04. Change of Fortune (1′15)
05. Weehawken Ferry (2′43)
06. Cold Meat Party (0′40)
07. All Prayed Out (2′38)
08. Tillie’s Downtown Now (2′19)
Performed by Bud Freeman and His Windy City Five
09. Three Bucks Twenty (1′01)
10. Corn Griffin (1′12)
11. Shoe Polish (0′48)
12. Londonderry Air (0′27)
Performed by Paul Giamatti
13. The Hope of the Irish (0′52)
14. Hooverville Funeral (2′54)
15. Fight Day (3′39)
16. Good as Murder (0′51)
17. We’ve Got to Put That Sun Back in the Sky (1′27)
Performed by Roane’s Pennsylvanians
18. No Contest (1′08)
19. Pugilism (1′06)
20. Bulldog of Bergen (1′42)
21. Big Right (2′50)
22. 9, 3, 2 Even (1′27)
23. Cinderella Man (4′48)
34. Turtle (3′21)
35. Cheer Up! Smile! Nertz! (4′02)
Performed by Eddie Cantor with Phil Spitalny’s Music

Total Playing Time: 46′49