The biggest problem with the film Palo Alto: too much James Franco. In some ways, this was unavoidable—after all, it is a movie based on his collection of short stories, and out of all the unredeemable characters who aren't human beings so much as a bundle of oversold affectations, his manipulative, lecherous high school teacher “Mr. B” is the least redeemable. Consequently, the film suffers both from dilettantism and taking itself way too seriously, an immiscible mixture of Kids-style scared-straight sex romp and the beatific teen dream of T**he Virgin Suicides (helmed by director Gia Coppola’s aunt, Sofia).
But it'd be unfair to expect Blood Orange mastermind Dev Hynes' score to Palo Alto to replicate last year's Cupid Deluxe; the latter was Hynes’ portrayal of outcasts in a pop setting, the inverse of Palo Alto’s gauzily-shot coterie of mopey high school A-listers. I went into my viewing experience of Palo Alto having no idea Hynes was responsible for the score, which is barely noticable throughout the film. This means he did his job of being both hip and unobtrusive; the title track and “April’s Daydream” are the few vocal pieces that are at least reminders of the limber, lithe funk that got him here in the first place. Otherwise, the near entirety of the score does away with his requisite Hynes-ness and gives you about what you’d expect from an indie artist working on a well-financed indie film: minute-long asides consisting of the occasional well of strings, mallet percussion, and slow-moving synthesizer pads, almost none of it set to a beat.
The score is nice enough, if not necessarily evocative or distinct—the titles helpfully point out where each snippet appeared in the film, though it’s indicative of the score’s mundane cohesion that “Run to Graveyard”, “Skateboard Garage”, and “Teddy in the Library” somehow all sound pretty much the same. It leads to the same question asked of M83's Anthony Gonzalez upon his completion of the Oblivion soundtrack—why would you ask him to do this if it’s not going bear the artist’s signature? There’s an easy answer to that: as a means of branding, Palo Alto works splendidly, its musical component coming from someone who’s currently a hot item. Palo Alto may only be useful as background music, but as long as Hynes’ star continues to rise, it's hard not to see him potentially getting more work in this vein.
Pop music does plays a crucial role in establishing the film's narrative flow, as its most memorable scenes usually involved two people sitting uncomfortably close on a couch, accompanied by the overlay of a recognizable “indie” song. The most noteworthy example is when Die Antwoord’s “Enter the Ninja” makes it clear a house party has officially been upgraded to a raging kegger. It is not on the soundtrack, but Blood Orange’s “You’re Not Good Enough” and Mac DeMarco’s “Ode to Viceroy” are; they're two songs which already feel like standards, the latter in particular conveying the mix of easy, boyish charm and underlying seediness that the film's male characters are entirely unable to exude.
Instead, we’re given reminders of what protagonists Fred and Teddy are actually like in the movie. Nat Wolff’s Fred is presented as a magnetic misanthrope and comes across as a superhumanly annoying, sociopathic asshole who can only express his supposed complexities in the most comically blatant way; his meta-goof “Rock Star (Movie Version)” finds him banging on a piano in the middle of a party, which is supposed to indicate his ability to be charming before he gets too many drinks in him. Meanwhile, Jack Kilmer’s Teddy is demonstrated as a soulful, artistic type caught up in incapacitating teen angst and peer pressure; while his estranged love interest (Emma Roberts’ April) has a good sulk in her bedroom, "T.M." is supposed to reveal Teddy's inner Cobain, and instead comes across like a poorly played instrumental from the first 3 Doors Down album.
Jack Kilmer is Val’s son, and portions of Palo Alto were filmed at his house in Southern California, which is indicative of the film's clumsy grasp on reality; if Palo Alto wasn’t the name of the movie, you’d have no idea where it actually took place, (save for the California license plates). This is troubling, since the Silicon Valley focal point and home of Stanford University and isn’t exactly Anytown U.S.A.; the soundtrack even suggests that Palo Alto is in Orange County, given the presence of contributions from Jason Schwartzman’s post-Phantom Planet concern Coconut Records, as well as Rooney lead singer Robert Schwartzman.
Palo Alto is as much an audition for Robert Schwartzman as it is for Dev Hynes; he’s given four tracks, half of which show a facility for rehashing interstitials from Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. Otherwise, you get a couple of lo-fi electro-alt songs, and as far as lo-fi, electro-alt side projects featured in grim high school movies go, Robert Schwartzman's contributions don't exactly resemble the Folk Implosion: “So Bad” samples Billy Squier’s “The Big Beat”, i.e., the one from “99 Problems” and “Fix Up, Look Sharp”, meaning it was already getting played out when Rooney was still sh-sh-shakin.
Otherwise, Palo Alto is most notable for its clear outliers: “Champagne Coast”, the highlight from Blood Orange’s largely forgotten 2011 debut Coastal Grooves, and Tonsstartssbandht’s maddeningly catchy proto-witch house earworm “5FT7”. There’s also a century-old Italian aria from Senza Mamma, a melodramatic musical play written by Francesco Pennino and included in Frances Ford Coppola’s The Godfather: Part II. Pennino is Coppola’s maternal grandfather, and the lead singer of Rooney also used to go by Robert Coppola Schwartzman, just two indicators of the enterprise of smug, well-connected, celebrity indulgence that is Palo Alto.
