| Duncan Sheik's song Wishful Thinking is a guilty pop pleasure from the soundtrack of the 1997 film Great Expectations, yet is not actually played throughout the movie. I presume this is because Sheik was a latecomer to the Great Expectations roster. He had happened to be working on a song whose melodic motif complemented the existing score, and whose lyrics coincidentally matched the movie's themes of unrequited love and uncertainty.
And uncertain it definitely is; it completely paints for me the flippancy of Estella towards Finn, the way she'll stand before him naked as he paints her and brush his hand with her thigh, before turning on her heel and flipping her ice blonde hair without looking back. It also forces me to feel Finn's frustration, the way he is pretty much consumed with `wishful thinking' and keeps trying to touch something knows is going to hurt him.
Sheik says, "Alfonso (the director) told me he wanted to get across a sense of ambiguity in the film. What I took that to mean is that, in life, great expectations or wishful thinking are double-edged swords. You need to have certain kinds of hopes to direct your life. On the other hand, they can come back and haunt you or kill you. I wanted to convey that--that you need these sensibilities, but they can be very painful."
Wishful Thinking
Listen to the waves,
Everything communicates
Will it ever be
Anything more than wishful thinking?
Oh no, there you go
Looked away and missed the show
how much wasted time
Will you survive?
Feel the blades of grass
How it brings you back
it will always be
Only as green as you can see
Oh no, there you go
Looked away and missed the show
how much wasted time
Will you survive?
Oh yeah fooled again,
I don't know how and I don't know when
Not much else to blame
But wishful thinking
Little breakdowns
In coastal towns.
They come suddenly
Crashing over you.
They come easily.
I'm falling through the skies
And frozen places
Oh no, there you go
Looked away and missed the show
how much wasted time
Will you survive?
Oh yeah fooled again,
I don't know how and I don't know when
Not much else to blame
But wishful thinking
And I try to realize
That I needn't look any further
the whole of the universe
Is plain to see
And I try not to rely
On another world or the future
The whole of the universe is a mystery
And it gets me over
Yeah, it gets me over
and it gets me over
Yeah, it gets me over
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