• Composed by Laura Karpman
• MovieScore Media / 39m

A romantic comedy starring William Shatner and Jean Smart, Senior Moment was filmed in 2017 but is only now being released (not generally a good sign). But whatever the fate of the film, we can all enjoy Laura Karpman’s surprising score, which sounds like classic comedy caper music with some modern twists. If you enjoyed David Holmes’s work on Ocean’s 11 and its sequels (as I believe most people did), you will surely like this too because it covers fairly similar ground. In particular I like how cleverly Karpman mixes a “vintage” approach with sprightly energy and modern touches, musically conveying that there’s life in the old guys and girls yet,

Bass, vibes, drum kit, piano and brass form the core of the jazz band used for much of the music, which also features some sampled voices which always give it a surprising edge (right from the first track, “Senior Center”). It’s light and fluffy in the best way. There is sometimes more overt romance – including in, not so surprisingly, “Romance”, a solo piano piece which is quite lovely. There are occasionally more serious moments – the opening of “Rock Kendall” suggests it’s going to be a fairly mournful piece, before a bizarre combination of Morricone sounds and record scratches (which works!) turns it somewhat less serious again but shortly afterwards “I Was an Idiot” is a really lovely piece (full of apologetic feeling) and then later on “Heart Attack” is unsurprisingly tense and dramatic. Really though, the album just breezes by – I don’t think anyone will pretend it’s a substantial feast of any kind, but sometimes you don’t want or need that and this is really very entertaining comedy music.

Rating: ***

facebook.com/moviewave | twitter.com/MovieWaveDotNet | amazon.com