MOVIE MUSIC UK

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

Long Distance is a science fiction action-adventure movie directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck, starring Anthony Ramos, Naomi Scott, Kristofer Hivju, and the voice of Zachary Quinto. Ramos and Scott play Ramirez and Calloway, a pair of astronauts who crash-land on different sides of a remote planet after an asteroid destroys their space mining vessel; the pair try to find each other and await rescue, but in order to do so they have to survive the harsh environment of the planet, while avoiding the deadly spider-like alien creatures who roam its surface.

It’s taken almost five years for this film to come to fruition; originally the directors intended to start shooting in early 2020 with Ramos and Rachel Brosnahan in the lead roles, but everything was thrown into chaos by the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in Brosnahan eventually dropping out and Scott replacing her. Once filming finally finished it had an excessively long post-production period throughout 2021, and was scheduled for theatrical release in March 2022, but was delayed, and delayed, and delayed again. Eventually the film was released in cinemas in a few markets in South-East Asia in the summer of 2024, before being unceremoniously dumped onto Hulu for North American and European audiences back in July.

It’s a shame that the release of the film has been so poorly handled because it also means that it’s score, by the Oscar-winning British composer Steven Price, is also likely to be overlooked. Price has been having a quietly excellent year in 2025; his work has included scores as varied as the historical epic William Tell, the action comedy Heads of State, the indie comedy Oh Hi, and the nature documentary Ocean with David Attenborough, with Edgar Wright’s remake of The Running Man to come in November. While none of these scores have been especially groundbreaking, they are all nevertheless decent, solid efforts which showcase Price’s versatility across multiple genres, and Long Distance – despite actually being written well over a year ago – is probably the best of the bunch.

As one would expect given the genre the score is a contemporary hybrid of orchestra, electronics, and some occasional vocals, but where it stands out from all the other similarly-pitched scores that come out in each year is in its style and emotion; in short, it has tons of both. Price takes what is a now very familiar tonal approach and wraps it around a memorable theme, and then blends this with some genuinely outstanding, exciting and engaging action music, to create a hugely enjoyable whole that entertains from beginning to end.

The opening cue “Distant” – the film’s original title – is a perfect encapsulation of all this. It’s filled with interesting and complicated and orchestral writing, creative electronic textures, and contains a superb, heroic, rousing central motif for brass that breathes life into the whole affair. The main theme has a wonderful throwback sound that I adore, and in places it reminded me a little bit of Bruce Broughton’s score for the 1998 Lost in Space movie – and this is very much a good thing. Lots of composers try to write music like this, but very few of them are able to inject the amount of energy and artistry that Price has done here.

The lyrical cello line that runs through a great deal of the opening cue’s middle section slowly becomes the main emotional core of the film, typically representing the memories of his family that Ramirez uses as inspiration to drive him forward and find a way home for himself and Calloway. References to both the main theme and the ‘family’ theme appear frequently throughout it all, sometimes plainly, sometimes obliquely, buy always keeping the emotional anchors of the score at the forefront of things. The statements during “Keep Talking,” the unexpectedly pretty “Glitching,” and the opening third of “A Friend Request” are especially noteworthy, and add a layer of sensitivity and pathos to the characters’ fates. Elsewhere, parts of “Actually Kind of Beautiful” also make use of some almost subliminal vocal textures, increasing the emotional impact of the piece even further.

On the flip side of this is the score’s suspense and action music, which is just as engaging, albeit in a different way. Cues like “It Appears We Are Falling,” the eerie “Terrain Unstable,” the determined-sounding “Keep Walking,” and the throbbing “Do Not Mute Me” undulate between chilly spacey ambiances and more threatening moments of gripping orchestral dissonance, some of which encroaches into light horror territory. The electronic sounds in these cues are front-and-center, deeply woven into the fabric of the music, and although I found them to be appropriate and creative, anyone with a more pronounced aversion to that sound may not be so positive. There are clear echoes of his Oscar-winning score for Gravity in some of this music too, so fans of that score will likely be the most appreciative.

The more rich and vivid action cues – notably the final two thirds of “A Friend Request,” the second half of “Actually Kind of Beautiful,” “Should Have Tried Harder,” and “Assuming I Even Make It” – often accompany the scenes where Ramirez and Calloway must fight and escape from the terrifying spider-like creatures that inhabit the planet they are on, and they are all quite excellent, some of the best music of this type in Price’s career to date. Price has written plenty of fun and engaging action music throughout his 15+ years in the business, but the confidence and intensity he brings to Long Distance is something really quite special. The speed of the string writing and the density of the brass is especially impressive but, again, if the sound of electronic textures over an orchestra tends to rub you the wrong way regardless of the complexity of the symphonic writing, your mileage may vary.

“You Are a Good Friend” offers a sense of rousing and hopeful catharsis in a way that energizes the main theme; the way Price uses his electronic pulses and rhythms to push the orchestra forward in this cue is very reminiscent of the final piece from Gravity, when Sandra Bullock’s character crawls out of her crashed space capsule and ecstatically crawls onto a beach, both in terms of the cue’s sound and its emotional intent. The conclusive “Wake Up” is softer and warmer and more idyllic, ending the score on a positive note.

As I mentioned earlier in this review, Steven Price is quietly enjoying a banner year in 2025, and Long Distance is, for me, the best of his half dozen scores so far. The memorable main theme and the thrilling action music is its biggest selling point but, honestly, unless you really find the electronics completely unpalatable, there isn’t a weak spot in the entire thing. The film itself may be a misfire, unceremoniously crash-landing on streaming services without fanfare after years in distribution hell, but the score is one to explore.

Buy the Long Distance soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• Distant (4:57)
• It Appears We Are Falling (5:15)
• Terrain Unstable (4:05)
• Keep Walking (2:51)
• Keep Talking (1:45)
• Glitching (1:43)
• Webbing (2:57)
• Do Not Mute Me (3:24)
• A Friend Request (6:02)
• Actually Kind of Beautiful (5:58)
• A Three Percent Chance (1:50)
• Should Have Tried Harder (3:23)
• Memory Bank (3:22)
• Assuming I Even Make It (3:28)
• You Are a Good Friend (2:49)
• Wake Up (3:31)

Back Lot Music (2025)

Running Time: 57 minutes 19 seconds

Music composed by Steven Price. Conducted by Anthony Parnther. Orchestrations by Geoff Alexander, David Butterworth, Jennifer Hammond and Evan Rogers. Recorded and mixed by Noah Scot Snyder. Edited by Bradley Farmer. Album produced by Steven Price.