Parent Trap

One of my favorite movie soundtracks comes from the Parent Trap because each song played at specific scenes stimulates the exact emotion the composers and filmmakers were going for.  There she goes by the La’s is a well known song and every time I hear it I associate it with this movie. The scene where Hallie Parker, who is pretending to be her twin sister, Annie, is for the first time in London driving to see her mom for the first time. She is in a new country and amazed looking around at all the different buildings while There she Goes plays in the background. “Racing through my brain and I just can’t contain this feeling that remains.” Hallie feels on top of the world in this scene you can feel her excitement and also nervousness to meet her mom for the first time in her life. These lyrics go well with the upbeat and happy tone of the scene and also represent the emotion the character is feeling at that point. It emotionally attracts viewers through Hallie’s own excitement and curiosity. According to Mansell, in the article Music and Mood, “I wanted the music to give off that basic feeling of what is to be a human, and that we could feel this growth through the music.” Everyone experiences those moments where so many thoughts are running through your head at once and you almost can’t contain the emotion it gives off. This song depicts perfectly how the character is moving around with a million things going on at once for her in this moment and scene. The music, mood, and scene create a happy, jittery, and lighthearted tone the audience can relate to.

A later scene in one of the rising points in the movie is when the Lindsay Lohan’s characters (Hallie and Annie) need to separate from each other while one stays in London with their mom (Natasha Richardson) and one leaves for California with their dad (Dennis Quaid). Every Time We Say Goodbye, by Ray Charles and Betty Carter, was the best choice of music for this scene. It is raining hard outside and all the characters are upset and tearful they have to separate when things were starting to come together again. The audience immediately feels the characters’ pain as we all have had to say goodbye to someone we care about in life. The rain pouring and slow music evokes a sadness the viewer can instantly feel. We largely associate rain and slow music with sad/sorrowful emotion, so this song with the scene enhances viewers watching to connect and feel that sadness that characters are experiencing. “Every time we say goodbye, I die a little. Every time we say goodbye I wonder why a little. Why the gods above be must be in the know, think so little of me, they allow you to go.” The young girls don’t understand why they have to be separated again, much as people every day don’t understand why things happen the way they do. 

The soundtrack to his movie included many well-known composers and performers which added to the enjoyment listening. Every song was chosen extremely well depending what mood the music was supposed to be giving and Id rate this a strong 3. The emotion was easily connected between characters, the scene, and the audience.