Silva Screen Records has released Alexandre Desplat’s spirited score to Stephen Frears’s humorous and romantic film based on Posy Simmonds’s well-loved graphic novel. In Tamara Drewe, Desplat’s animated contemporary orchestral score is driven by tuned percussion leitmotifs. It leads the story and underwrites the pauses between the action, enabling the film’s narrative to skip from darker to lighter moments. There’s an energy driven by both the dramaturgy, the choral structure of the characters, and the dark humour of the film...

On first listen, the tracks on Alexandre Desplat’s soundtrack to Tamara Drewe sound a little shallow, with nothing much going on... but give it a chance while the music is all very similar, mellow and atmospheric, there are some interesting beats.

The album opens with the quirky 'Opening Titles' which sets the right tone - the main theme here is weaved in and out of the rest of the tracks.

'Packing and Closing' was my favourite track. It seems to go nowhere, but is incredibly mellow with touching beats in the final half - just before the quirky main theme kicks in.

The final three tracks 'Where are you now?'; 'This is a low'; and 'Jail-Bait Jody' are your typical middle-of-the-road rock songs. The first two tracks are performed by Swipe, while 'Jail-Bait Jody' is performed by Dominic Cooper. While I don't usually enjoy this style of music these three tracks work well on this album - and you can always skip them if they're not to your taste.

While on balance I enjoyed this soundtrack I don't think it's the sort of album I'd revisit all that often. While the music may provide interesting when played in the context of the movie, as music to listen to in isolation it starts to get a bit samey a little too quickly.

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Darren Rea