Like so many other
Mark Isham scores,
Last Dance celebrates mood and texture to the virtual exclusion of stylistic diversity. Divorced from the onscreen narrative it was written to accompany, the music is simply too bleak to command the listener's attention over the soundtrack's duration.
Isham's score probes the desperation and alienation of a woman on death row (Sharon Stone, presumably convicted for making so many godawful movies), and the music is relentlessly grim, its brief flickers of hope inevitably dashed. The
London Metropolitan Orchestra's performance is lovely, and the contributions of solo female soprano
Sally Dworsky are harrowing, but
Last Dance is simply a collection of minor variations on one deep, dark theme, and even at under 35 minutes, it's an endurance test. ~ Jason Ankeny