The absurdly romantic
Only You remains the watershed score of
Rachel Portman's career -- its melodramatic melodies and overwrought arrangements have subsequently resurfaced at weddings, beauty pageants, and anywhere else where housewives might sob uncontrollably, effectively functioning as a musical Pavlovian trigger for the crocodile tears to commence. It seems likely
Portman composed this music in her teenage diary, dotting the "i"'s in titles like "Faith" and "I'm Coming with You" with tiny hearts --
Only You possesses the kind of starry-eyed innocence and rapturous emotion exclusive to hopeless romantics, and cynical listeners may slip into sugar shock within three or four notes. Only about 20 minutes of
Portman's original score appears on Sony's official soundtrack release; classical Italian music fleshes out the remainder of the disc, which concludes with
Michael Bolton's histrionic "Once in a Lifetime." Ick. ~ Jason Ankeny