Philomena (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Oscar-nominated Philomena screenwriter/costar Steve Coogan offers insightful praise for the film’s French composer, Alexandre Desplat: “I love his scores because they don’t spoon-feed the audience. His are much more subtle.” Indeed, the composer’s musical instinct often seems like a sixth sense in service of director Stephen Frears’ bittersweet road movie. Desplat coaxes great emotional resonance from the theme, rooted in the sounds of a simple fairground calliope. Desplat explains that the theme became “the beating heart" of the film. "The movie starts with this scene in the fairground," he says, "and we hear in the background an organ playing a tune, and that's mine. When this melody comes back, I'm not sure anyone has noticed that it was in the fairground. Never mind—it's there, subliminally played. And that's how I've tailored the score with this theme recurring here and there, orchestrated in a way that reminds us of the fairground sound with little recorders and strings.”