** GREAT EXPECTATIONS: THE SCORE

(Atlantic)

Like the film itself, Patrick Doyle's score is slick, shallow, and occasionally haunting. "Estella's Theme" features John Williams's wistful slow Spanish guitar over organ-chord string counterpoint, with a melody that hints at the theme from Ice Castles; it metamorphoses into "Kissing in the Rain" which has a driving bittersweet energy reminiscent of French composer Maurice Jaubert (L'histoire d'Adèle H.), and then into the pop Elgar (think "Nimrod") of "The Day All My Dreams Came True." There's also pop Richard Strauss (think Four Last Songs), courtesy of Kiri Te Kanawa's operatic aria "I Saw No Shadow of Another Parting." You could do worse.

The rest is as picture-perfect glossy as stars Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow, with tipoff titles like "A Walk in the Park" and "The Price of Success." There's well-bread vocalise from Tori Amos and Janis Kelly, well-bred cocktail piano from Cyrus Chestnut ("Joe Leaves"), and well-bred jazz from Chestnut ("By the Inch or by the Hour") and James Carter ("The Big Trip") -- everything the hip Manhattanite needs to be, well, hip. In this context even Cesaria Évora ("Bésame Mucho" -- which is also on "The Album") sounds uptown.

-- Jeffrey Gantz