Review Summary: A folk lament for a troubled hero
I have grown wary of Hollywood’s appetite for dismantling familiar heroes, stories and traditions at a time when compelling new scripts seem increasingly scarce. Deconstruction should have something meaningful to say, and too many of these reinterpretations seem content with making everything bleaker. Michael Sarnoski’s,
The Death of Robin Hood earns its severity. This is a cruel, pessimistic telling of the legend, yet it still allows its protagonist the possibility of doing good. Hugh Jackman plays an ageing outlaw whose years of killing have left him exhausted by the life he has led. Gravely wounded and placed in the care of a mysterious woman, he is forced to confront what survives of the man beneath his reputation. There is heroism here, though it comes with a past that makes redemption difficult to imagine. Its tragedy nevertheless leaves room for catharsis and, eventually, release.
Jackman’s performance holds those conflicting aspects of Robin together. He can help a frightened girl confront her demons and teach her to defend herself. He can also offer a boy seeking revenge the chance to walk away, sparing another life when he could easily take it. These gestures matter because the ruthless killer remains entirely believable. Robin has saved people, but he has also left bodies behind him, and he is still capable of adding to their number. Even the encounter with would-be robbers who fail to recognise the elderly man they are threatening carries a sense of tragedy. His experience has made him formidable and desperately weary of the recurring business of violence and retaliation. What moves me is his desire to find some peace after a lifetime spent helping to deny it to others.
Jim Ghedi’s score makes that peace feel a long way off. I have always loved the way a film gathers meaning through small details, from a passing expression to a shift of the camera. Music can become an unseen presence in that process, and here it seems to remember things Robin would rather leave behind. When the film reveals his decency, the accompaniment often remains forbidding. I hear that imbalance as a reminder of the lives his generosity cannot restore. A few compassionate acts offer no easy settlement for the damage he has done. Robin has to keep choosing to behave differently, even when violence would come more readily. The score’s persistent sorrow gives those choices a seriousness that a more reassuring treatment might have lost.
Ghedi gives this interpretation a distinctive folk sound. Harmonium and hurdy-gurdy drones sustain a rough, dense backdrop, with fiddle melodies rising through it and occasional vocals adding a further human presence. The instruments can sound abrasive without becoming anonymous effects. There is a recognisable musical voice in the way a melody survives the surrounding unease. In
Twa Corbies, the clattering percussion suggests a march, while the droning strings and mournful singing make its urgency feel burdened by loss. The screeching violin and deep drums of
Elderfather Fight push that violence further. Across these harsher passages, the music gives the world a threatening physical presence, making it difficult to hear the action as uncomplicated adventure.
The folk writing also gives the soundtrack enough substance to sustain an independent listen. Sarnoski approached Ghedi after hearing his earlier work, and the inclusion of
What Will Become of England makes the connection easy to appreciate. Its acoustic guitar and chamber strings have a melancholy that needs no accompanying scene to register. I am drawn to the way the delicate playing remains audible within the sustained drone, offering intimacy without dispersing the gloom. The keyboard, violin and trumpet in
Lamentations of Round-Oak Waters broaden that sound, allowing the lament to take on different colours. Ghedi’s voice is used sparingly enough to retain its impact, and the songs help the collection feel like an album with an identity of its own.
The quieter writing is just as persuasive. The gradually unfolding strings of
Walking Again and the harp and woodwind of
I Owe This Life To You introduce tenderness into a score that has given the listener little comfort. Those changes feel especially welcome after its more punishing textures. Some of the sombre melodies remind me of the sorrow in Game of Thrones, particularly
The Rains of Castamere and
Goodbye Brother. It is an emotional resemblance I hear, with no sense that Ghedi is borrowing their themes. His folk instrumentation keeps the music particular to this film, even when the grief it expresses feels familiar.
My reservation concerns how often the album returns to its droning foundations. They are central to its atmosphere, but the recurring themes do not always vary enough to keep the sustained textures equally absorbing. Heard away from the screen, some passages feel too similar in mood and movement, and the weight of that repetition can dull the effect. Listeners with less patience for drone may find it a substantial obstacle. For me, it limits an otherwise compelling record, especially because the more lyrical moments demonstrate how much expression Ghedi can draw from a modest change in instrumentation.
By
Robin’s Death, the music finally allows the sense of release I have been waiting for. Its slow conclusion feels like the end of a cycle that has consumed far too many lives. The sorrow remains, but the struggle seems to subside, and I hear an almost sacred quality in that stillness. It gives Robin’s search for peace an emotional finality that stays with me beyond the film. Ghedi has composed a soundtrack I expect to revisit often, both for its unsettling beauty and for the compassion that gradually becomes audible within it. The ending leaves me thinking about making peace with ourselves while there is still time. This is a brilliant work of folk composition, deeply moving both within the film and as an album in its own right.
