Much as the beleaguered Charlie Kaufman eventually enlisted his screenwriter-savant brother Donald to doctor his script, Burwell hands his signature progression to Fatboy Slim and Zeno, with impressive results. Slim fleshes it out with a gurgling groove, then cuts to bleak minimalist beeps. Zeno increases the intensity of the album's most frenetic segment until it explodes into sputtering static. The record ends with the Turtles' evergreen "Happy Together," which some listeners familiar with the movie's plot might interpret as a nod to its central paradox. Kaufman, seeking to make a film devoid of gunplay and car crashes, makes a few misguided moves and ends up an unwilling cast member in a real-life action thriller. Burwell, it could follow, wanted to oversee a soundtrack without resorting to reliable classics, but in the end couldn't avoid the temptation. But "Happy Together" actually plays an essential role in the film, linking its most absurd scenes to its most tragic. There, it's a cheery tune dimmed by its uncomfortable proximity to death and star-crossed love. Here, the emotion-spanning symphonies that precede it both amplify and necessitate its perkiness.
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