You've Got Mail (Original Motion Picture Score)

by Jason AnkenyYou've Got Mail is standard romantic comedy fare, for better or for worse -- composer George Fenton creates a lightweight score as self-consciously cute and saccharine as the film's co-star Meg Ryan, and while it's not exactly boring, it's by no means engaging, either. There's no doubting the consummate skill at work here, just as there's no mistaking the soullessness of the whole endeavor -- this is music as paint-by-numbers, as predictable as the sun's rise each morning and interchangeable with dozens of other breezy, soufflé-light evocations of modern love. Perhaps it's the ideal soundtrack for a lazy day curled up on the couch with a Danielle Steel novel and a cup of Taster's Choice, but otherwise its willful inoffensiveness is completely offensive.