**** Love's Labour's Lost

SOUNDTRACK

(Sony Classical)

This is a true soundtrack in that what you hear in the movie theater when you go to see Kenneth Branagh's exquisite film is what you find on the disc: pearls like Cole Porter's "I Get a Kick out of You," Irving Berlin's "Cheek to Cheek" and "Let's Face the Music and Dance," Jerome Kern's "The Way You Look Tonight," and the Gershwins' "They Can't Take That Away from Me" all strung on the romantic thread of Patrick Doyle's original music, which is what Edward Elgar might have turned out if he'd composed soundtracks. Those who prefer purity to personality may not take to the light, characterful singing of Branagh's cast; I found the likes of Branagh's wistful baritone and Alicia Silverstone's breathy soprano not only listenable but endearing. And if Doyle's score is not for the terminally cynical, I suspect it would have brought a tear to Sir Edward's eye; certainly the closing "Victory," with its soft "Pomp and Circumstance"-like tramp, nobly underlines Shakespeare's "From women's eyes this doctrine I derive" salute to ladies everywhere. Only quibble: no inclusion of Branagh's uproariously deadpan (and dead-on) Movietone News parodies.

-- Jeffrey Gantz