13 CHILLS 2011

By JASON COMERFORD

George Ratliff’s 2007 chiller-wannabe Joshua aspires to the killer-kid crown held by the likes of The Bad Seed, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Omen, but in its home stretch tosses away credibility by resorting to a series of absurd plot turns, not to mention a wholly unconvincing (and oddly homophobic) finale. Still, for its first half, it’s an assured, promising thriller, Ratliff and David Gilbert’s script giving us a deft sketch of a young, uncomfortably wealthy couple (Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga), whose increasingly dysfunctional relationship is subtly underplayed.
 
Thankfully, composer Nico Muhly has the situation well in hand. As their prodigal son Joshua is slowly pushed out of the limelight of their affections by a new baby, the film reaches a delicious fever pitch as Farmiga, driven to the emotional breaking point, agrees to an ill-fated game of hide-and-seek amidst the dark corners of the couple’s tony Manhattan apartment building. As Muhly relates in his note for MovieScore Media’s limited release of the score,
 
It begins sun-drenched and idyllic, with bells, harp, and piano outlining a wholesome and growing family. Gradually, the piano becomes an antagonist, as Joshua becomes more and more menacing to his mother, the piano moves to registral extremes, obsessing over the highest and lowest notes of the keyboard. Shrill piccolo and ominous trombones move in to support it, and a solo violin creeps in to further antagonize Abby as she eventually succumbs to post-partum depression and paranoia.
 
Muhly is one of the brightest new stars not just of film music, but of modern symphonic music in general. A graduate of Columbia and Juliard, Muhly studied composition under such illustrious teachers as John Corigliano and Christopher Rouse, and began his career as an editor, conductor and keyboardist for Phillip Glass. Muhly’s solo concert works have been premiered and commissioned by the American Symphony Orchestra, the Julliard Orchestra, the Boston Pops, and the Chicago Symphony MusicNOW. Most recently, Muhly scored The Reader for director Stephen Daldry, and his opera Two Boys, featuring a libretto by the acclaimed writer Craig Lucas, will debut at the Metropolitan Opera during the 2013/14 season.
 
That pedigree is no joke: Joshua demonstrates Muhly’s consummate command of symphonic technique and structure, bringing a level of class and sophistication to the material that it (arguably) doesn’t deserve. The nimbly scored “Hide and Seek” sequence clocks out at nearly nine minutes in length, with a full array of rippling flute lines, eerily curling violin figures, and discordant blasts of brass all carefully arranged to keep the viewer (and listener) on the edge of their seat. Joshua is an exemplary example of thriller scoring given a fresh, uncynical and serious-minded spin, and it’s a superb entry point into the already-enormous body of work of one of America’s most fascinating symphonic talents.

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