Search - Various Artists :: A Home at the End of the World

Adapted from the novel/screenplay of Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham (The Hours), Colin Farrell gives an inspired performance as a tragedy-stricken youth whose search for identity and happiness forms the core of its unconventional friendship and romance. Its warm, admirably eclectic song-based soundtrack echoes the film's two decade arc with selections that span both era and emotion, from the innocence of Dusty Springfield's "Wishin' and Hopin'" and Yaz' infectious "Only You" to the angst-ridden classic rock-era bookends of "Somebody to Love" by the Jefferson Airplane and Patty Smith's epochal "Because the Night." The score's classical selections continue that thread with excerpts from Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte and contemporary minimalist Steve Reich's vibrant Music for Eighteen Musicians. But it's the half-dozen warm, introspective new tracks from Duncan Sheik that form the soundtrack's evocative emotional core, with melancholic, production-rich standouts like "Something Somewhere" infusing it with a smart, contemporary atmosphere in the bargain. --Jerry McCulley