Romance and time travel are no strangers, as any chick flick aficionado who has emptied a box of Kleenex watching and re-watching Somewhere in Time or The Lake House can attest.

Regardless, the two elements meet up again in The Time Travelers Wife, based on the novel by Audrey Niffenegger and starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana.

The film is about Clare and Henry (played by McAdams and Bana) who have their love intermittently interrupted by a genetic anomaly that causes Henry to involuntary travel through time. The Time Travelers Wife - which is already a box office hit - clearly aims directly for the heartstrings, and its soundtrack certainly reflects this objective.

Mychael Danna, who composed the scores for indie favorites Little Miss Sunshine and (500) Days of Summer, provides a multi-layered score for the film that is at once tender, haunting and even whimsical in places.

Much of the album relies on a stirring set of strings to set the tone for the films story, as on tracks like Meadow and I Never Had a Choice. Often, Danna employs a piano as well to accent the emotional thrust of the melody, and on I Dont Feel Alone Anymore, the two instruments get a chance to duet, almost as if their interplay is meant to signify the love that the films two main characters share.

Try to Stay and See You Again are also standouts amidst the 21 tracks that Danna contributes. They are both featured late on the album and - one can expect - late in the film as well. The instruments seem to rise up on these tracks particularly, conveying the rising stakes that Clare and Henry are faced with as they struggle to stay together.

Throughout, Dannas melodies imbue the score with an old-fashioned feel and a subtle reverence to the classic movie romances that have come before it. Regardless of how the film holds up, Dannas score proves memorable and establishes the composer as a rising talent.

In addition to Dannas work, the soundtrack also features two non-score tracks. Broken, a guitar-driven ballad by popular soft rock band Lifehouse, nicely complements the films emotional core and the soothing melodies of its score. Meanwhile, Love Will Tear Us Apart, a cover of the Joy Division song by Broken Social Scene, seems out of place, its electronically garbled vocals and repetitive, unoriginal refrain incongruous with every other track on the album.

Although the soundtrack to The Time Travelers Wife is available exclusively at digital retailers, it is well worth a download, especially for fans of piano-centric scores. However, if popular music is more your taste, the Lifehouse track is still worth a look.