DIRECTOR
Stephen
Frears
SCREENWRITERS
D.V.
DeVincentis
Steve Pink
John Cusack
Scott Rosenberg
based
on the novel by
Nick
Hornby
PRODUCERS
Tim Bevan
Rudd Simmons
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Seamus McGarvey
MUSIC
Howard Shore
EDITOR
Mick Audsley
CAST
John Cusack (Rob Gordon)
Iben Hjejle (Laura)
Todd Louiso (Dick)
Jack Black (Barry)
Tim Robbins (Ian Raymond)
Joan Cusack (Liz)
Lisa Bonet (Marie de Salle)
Lili Taylor (Sarah)
Catherine Zeta-Jones (Charlie)
Ben Carr (Justin)
Chris Rehmann (Vince)
Joelle Carter (Penny)
Natasha Gregson Wagner (Caroline)
Sara Gilbert (Annaugh)
MPAA rating: R
Running
time: 113m
U.S. release: March 31, 2000
Video availability: VHS - DVD
Official
website
Other Stephen
Frears films
reviewed on this website:
- Mary
Reilly
See also:
- About
a Boy
- Grosse
Pointe Blank
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Nick Hornby's well-loved novel
High Fidelity is set in London, while the new film version
unfolds in Chicago; other than that, the movie is aptly named
-- it's a faithful adaptation right down to the debates about
Top Five records. Reading the book, you can envision it without
John Cusack; watching the film, you can't imagine it without
him. Cusack meets Hornby's British self-consciousness with his
own American brand, adding his Cusackian knack for romantic yearning.
He plays guys that guys see themselves in and that women see
their past or possible future boyfriends in, either fondly or
hopefully.
Here he's Rob Gordon, an embittered, thirtysomething owner of
a failing record shop. Obsessively cataloguing his vast personal
record collection, just as obsessively chewing over his past
botched relationships, Rob is a descendant of the Daniel Stern
character in Diner, who freaked out when his wife shelved
his singles out of order. Rob is a big believer in pop music
as both the soundtrack for love and the influence on notions
of love, and the film's selection of tunes -- mostly beautifully
morose songs -- bears him out; even the uptempo numbers have
names like "You're Gonna Miss Me" and "Cold Blooded
Old Times."
Rob has just been dumped by longtime girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjejle),
a lawyer who's grown past him and is tired of waiting for him
to catch up. Rob seems to have a better rapport (though often
hostile) with his cronies at the shop, the effusive Barry (Jack
Black) and the recessive Dick (Todd Louiso), both music geeks
who seem to represent two extremes that Rob falls in the middle
of. He's not quite as hardcore about music as they are; he's
slowly growing out of it, but towards what, he's not sure yet.
Still, he knows his tunes, as seen in one of many memorable scenes,
when Rob spins a Beta Band disc in the shop and waits for the
music to lure buyers.
While Rob tries haplessly to recapture Laura's heart -- part
of which involves distracting her from pompous new flame Ian
(old Cusack buddy Tim Robbins in a hilariously insufferable performance)
-- Rob flashes back on his past disasters, talking directly to
us, as if we were friends sitting in on his anguish; this gives
the movie a slightly voyeuristic feel. Stephen Frears, who also
directed Cusack in The Grifters ten years ago (impossible
to think that hard-bitten noir came right on the heels
of the gentle Say Anything), expertly creates Rob's cluttered
milieu, a place where clarity gets lost in the nooks and crannies
of disorganized apartments.
Cusack adapted the book with help from friends D.V. DeVincentis
and Steve Pink, as well as Scott Rosenberg. Though I'm not sure
why it took four guys to transcribe a script almost verbatim
from the novel, it's nice to see the three musketeers Cusack,
DeVincentis, and Pink together again after their 1997 triumph
Grosse
Pointe Blank. Their new film has a radically different
tone and rhythm -- it lacks GPB's dark edge, New Wave
pulse, and rapid-fire exchange of quirky dialogue ("I'll
go put these in some rubbing alcohol," said Minnie Driver
when given flowers) -- but it's just as organically a Cusack
film, with an accumulating gallery of pleasures.
Not to mention a rogue's gallery of bright supporting performances.
Jack Black, of HBO's satirical show Tenacious D, grabs
the movie as soon as he walks through the door; onscreen with
the manic-depressive Cusack and the stammering Todd Louiso, he
has more than enough wall space to bounce his noisy tirades off
of. It must be said, also, that Rob has terrific taste in ex-girlfriends,
who include Catherine Zeta-Jones and Lili Taylor, both of whom
make more vivid impressions in a minimum of screen time here
than in the sad entirety of The
Haunting. Unfortunately, Rob's early rapport with Laura
(though she's smartly played by Iben Hjejle) is mainly hearsay;
since most of the movie is post-breakup, we seldom see them enjoying
each other's rhythms, the way Cusack and Minnie Driver (or for
that matter, Cusack and Ione Skye) did.
Rob's connection with singer
Marie de Salle (Lisa Bonet, giving a self-absorbed performance
as a self-absorbed woman) is hardly better. Cusack and company
have dropped the book's denouement in which Marie performs at
the record shop, and they were right to -- it would have come
off cheesy in a film. Still, it renders her character a little
pointless. But it doesn't seem to matter much: the movie is more
about the longing for love than about actual relationships. At
times, Rob seems to take a page from Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic
Park: he's looking for the next ex-girlfriend.
Cusack makes movies for and about disenchanted Gen-X guys; usually,
the Cusack hero has to unlearn some false mantra of self-definition
-- in GPB it was "I don't think what a person does
necessarily reflects who he is," and here it's "What
really matters is what you like, not what you are like."
High Fidelity follows the commitment-phobic Rob through
his bumpy ride to some sort of contentment; the movie ends up
saying nothing more remarkable than that the Robs of the world
need a Laura to set them straight, but it feels right here, because
what Rob yearns for is more than just a warm body in his bed.
He needs meaning, structure, a reason to get up in the morning.
There's more to life than romance or pop music, but there's no
reason you can't combine the two.
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