Music with heart
As the film got great reviews I was wondering if the soundtrack would keep the pace. Music is important to a film and most of the time people don’t even notice how it affects the tone of what they are watching. Picking music for a film like this is a delicate affair as it is chock full of emotion. Pick things that are too maudlin and it feels like you are being manipulated. Pick music that is too upbeat and you’ve ruined the foundation you’ve laid down. Most soundtracks disappoint as they have a couple of fitting songs and then the rest are just fillers. Turns out music is the backbone (and maybe the heart) of The Fault in Our Stars. Music supervisor Season Kent has earned his money and more picking out these songs. Kodaline’s “All I Want” is the perfect example of a song matching and even amplifying the tone of a film. It is sombre without being too melodramatic. Poignant without going over the top. Kent continues his excellence selecting songs by some of the most talented and respected young artists coming out of Great Britain right now. A trio of tracks exclusively written for the film by Birdy (unbelievable that she is only eighteen-years-old) then singles by Ed Sheeran, Jake Bugg, Tom Odell, Charli XCX and Tom Odell really set the mood and the bar high. When you are also able to thrown in a track by Ray Lamontagne and another by the excellent Lykke Li you have a soundtrack that everyone who sees the film will run out and buy so they can relive the emotions each time they play it.
