The best part of The Cider House Rules, the 1999 film by director Lasse Hallström (An Unfinished Life, Chocolat), is the sweet, uplifting score from composer Rachel Portman. When a movie’s score is the best thing you can say about it, that’s not always good. With that said, some excellent movie scores out there help make a good movie great or a great film near perfect. Examples off the top of my head that I can think of are Jaws, Rocky, Sicario, Jurassic Park, The Last of the Mohicans, Drive, The Social Network, Halloween, Far and Away, The Empire Strikes Back, and Braveheart, to name a few. Each is a movie that I would consider to be, at worst, a B+ movie. Though a lesser score would likely not diminish my impression of any of these films, one of the first three or four things that come to mind is the score. When I think of The Cider House Rules, I think immediately of Portman’s beautiful Oscar-nominated score. However, unlike the movies above, its great score doesn’t equate to greatness. An A+ score probably takes this C+/B- movie up to a B.
Category Archives: Lasse Hallstrom
Chocolat (2000)
Lasse Hallstrom’s (The Cider House Rules, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape) brings a fresh taste to a small, mythical French village in 1959 in his new film Chocolat. This fictitious fable delivers a gentle, kind, and uniquely original message. Its peculiar characters, everyone-knows-everyone small-town vibe, new neighbor intrigue, and sympathetic humor mix together more sweetly than the many chocolate recipes created by the film’s protagonist, Vianne (Juliette Binoche – The English Patient, Dan in Real Life).