Ingrid, Renee, Jackie, Stephanie, Susan. Those names I can rattle off my mind like shards of lightning, and they are at the top five of my list of breakups in my life. And so I could identify with Rob Gordon's unique ability to not only remember the names of past loves and the extent of their relationships, but to also know which pop/rock and roll songs were playing at the time, exclusively on vinyl. Music is an identifiable factor for me too, and for my sweet miseries of the past, it includes Huey Lewis and the News performing "Small World" in 1988 and "Shakedown" by Bob Seger from the summer of 1987. For Rob, it includes a different era of Fleetwood Mac and Paper Lace, and that is at the heart of Stephen Frears's delicately oddball romantic comedy "High Fidelity," which is more oddball comedy than romantic but it delivers all three in nearly equal doses and that is part of its charm.
Based on Nick Hornsby's 1995 cult novel of the same name, John Cusack plays the record-loving Rob who owns a small Bohemian-like record shop in Chicago called Championship Vinyl, which specializes in selling records wrapped in plastic (vinyl has not lost its touch since it is still sold in record shops, especially in New York City or Princeton, N.J.). Rob speaks directly to the camera, ruminating on his past top five breakups, most recently Laura (Iben Hjehle), while giving us the pop history of each breakup - the song that played and where it played as a reminder of that misery. Or as Rob puts it, "I don't remember if I was miserable when I listened to pop music or if listening to pop music made me miserable."
Laura has left Rob's pad but he loves her too much to just let go. She lives with a sexual hippie (hilariously portrayed by Tim Robbins) who is a martial-arts master. We get more than a few scenes of Rob dripping wet like a madman in the rain while calling Laura from outside her new home - this almost seems like an extension of the classic "Say Anything" by director Cameron Crowe that also starred Cusack. All Rob has left in his life, minus Laura, is his record store and two employees, the geeky, apologetic Dick (Todd Luiso) and the musically encyclopedic, irascible Barry (Jack Black) who is ticked off by anyone who does not share his music tastes. I love the moment when they discuss "Evil Dead 2" and its "great soundtrack" or Barry's recommendation to use "You Can't Always Get What You Want" at Laura's father's funeral:
Dick: 'That is an immediate disqualification on the grounds of it being used in "The Big Chill".'
Barry: 'Oh, God. You are right.'
Besides his listless life without Laura, Rob is a part-time DJ and briefly beds a sexy singer (Lisa Bonet) who shares Rob's lovelorn disappointments and sings Peter Frampton songs. And we get glimpses of Rob's obsession over his past loves, shown in brief flashbacks. He is so obsessed that he arranges to meet all five and figure out why he has failed them. Most memorable of these ex-girlfriends include Lili Taylor as an unhappy yet sometimes cheerful woman (only Lili can credibly play such a part) and Catherine Zeta-Jones as a rich, wild woman who is confused by Rob's need to explain why she left him.
"High Fidelity" is familiar turf, a lot of is reminiscent of some of the best parts of "Singles," one of my favorite comedies of the 90's. Still, thanks to director Stephen Frears's offbeat direction and Scott Rosenberg and Cusack's writing, the laughs come in with terrific precision, mainly due to Cusack's dead-on, quirky line readings. The cast is richly entertaining to watch, including the histrionic, energetic Jack Black, and a marvelous Joan Cusack as Rob's friend who is shocked to discover how Rob treated Laura thanks to Laura. I also enjoyed the presence of Hjejle - for once in these comedies, a real human being of the opposite sex shows how deeply hurt she is by a man's transgressions. Though the film loses momentum in the last half hour building to the predictable final act with Laura, "High Fidelity" has oodles of charm and a consistently jerky funny bone. It's uneven, like Cusack, but you expected that.
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E-mail me with any questions, concerns or comments at Faust667@aol.com or at jerry@movieluver.com
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