Elyse Stefanowicz - The Crying Game (1992)

Directed and Written by: Neil Jordan

When Fergus (Stephen Rea) takes care of a prisoner (Forrest Whitaker), they become more like friends than enemies. But when the prisoner is sent to be executed, he pardons his life only to get him accidentally killed. The prisoner and Fergus made a promise that if he died, Fergus would go tell his girlfriend that he loves her. Fergus flees his camp and does exactly that. When he finds the girl, he ends up falling for her but finds out that she has secrets of her own.

While the entire film only had 3 recognizable songs (that I can remember anyway), most of the music was a score. It was generally very low and dark. It was used to set the mood and raise and lower tension in certain scenes and didn't play that large of a role in the whole story. The score was composed of usually only string instruments and elevated feeling in certain key moments like any good score would do. It didn't distract but only made the experience that much better.

The recognizable songs however, seemed out of place and somewhat awkward when placed in the movie itself. The movie opens with "When a Man Loves a Woman" which gives the movie a completely different feel. I had never seen this movie before this viewing and because of that song, I thought it was going to be a completely different movie. It is totally different from the entire mood of the film and i'm not sure if it is intentional or just a bad music choice. The song "The Crying Game" is also heard a couple times throughout the film which is the title of the film.