After breaking up with his girlfriend, art student Ben develops insomnia. To take his mind off of his problems, he gets a job working the night shift at a local supermarket. He starts to fall in love with one of his co-workers, Sharon, and to escape the boredom of the job he lets his mind run wild. He imagines that he can stop time and walk around a world that is "frozen", a world in which he can undress and draw the female shoppers...

Cashback originally started life back in 2004 as a 19 minute short, winning numerous awards and receiving an Oscar nomination for best short film. In 2007 writer / director Sean Ellis reworked his tale, about an art student whose imagination runs wild while working in a supermarket, into a feature length movie.

The music from the feature film version features a mix of musical styles ranging from operatic arias, Guy Farley's classically influenced score and a handful of contemporary tracks. Classical music fans will also enjoy track nine ('The Challenge') which briefly gives a nod to Gustav Holst's The Planet Suite.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of this style of soundtrack. Whilst Farley's orchestral score is rousing, I never particularly enjoy the pop songs that are all too often included with this style of release. If I like a particular song I'll generally buy that band's album and the tracks chosen usually work well for the film, but when collected together on a CD never gel very well.

Farley's music accounts for about 25 minutes of this album, with the remaining 25 (ish minutes being made up of tracks by various artists - most of which did little for me. I'd have much preferred 50 minutes of Farley's music.

While Farley's score is great, because there's only 25 minutes of his work included this is probably not a CD I'd be chomping at the bit to purchase. However, for those that loved the film and enjoyed the music, while this is not an essential purchase it's still an interesting collection of different musical styles.

6

Darren Rea