Album Review: Anywhere But Here Soundtrack

So we've got Susan Sarandon playing Mom to Natalie Portman as the two make a painful-but-powerful odyssey to Beverly Hills from their Wisconsin hometown. Natalie's the adolescent daughter playing challenger to her Mom's new lifestyle as the two try to adjust to life in the capital of glamour. So for the soundtrack we'd expect...what? A selection of painful-but-powerful music from female musicians, detailing the trials and tribulations of adolescent uprooting and the love-hate mother-daughter relationship? That's exactly what we get. The soundtrack includes a smattering of love and/or loss songs, featuring Sarah McLachlan, Lisa Loeb and Carly Simon (who, fittingly, is joined by her daughter in singing "Amity," an ill-conceived attempt at marrying folk, pop, a pinch of country and maybe a little blues). Loeb's "I Wish" and McLachlan's "Ice Cream" leave us wondering if the producers could have chosen something just a little more mainstream. Bif Naked jumps into the jumble with "Chotee," which, refreshingly, has a beat that is faster than a pacemaker. Of the two new tracks, Lang's title track is understandably pop-py, with lyrics that fit right in with the mood of the movie, while Rimes' "Leaving's Not Leaving" makes one wonder whether she will ever come out with something really new. B