# High Fidelity (2000)

### reviewed by
Steve Rhodes

    HIGH FIDELITY
    A film review by Steve Rhodes
    Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes
    RATING (0 TO ****):  *** 1/2

"Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable or am I miserable because I listen to pop music?" Rob Gordon (John Cusack) says in voice-over in the introduction to Stephen Frears's HIGH FIDELITY.

Rob runs an old-fashioned vinyl record store, "located in a neighborhood that attracts the bare minimum of window shoppers." He has precisely two employees, Barry (Jack Black) and Dick (Todd Louiso), whom he hired to work for 3 days a week, but since they come every day anyway, he figures that he can't fire them. The three of them insult what few customers they have unless they consider the buyer's level of musical knowledge acceptable. They spend their time in the store quizzing each other and coming up with various 5-best lists.

"I know we don't have customers, but I thought that was a bad thing and not a business strategy," Barry tells Rob while apologizing for telling Rob's newest heartthrob about the store. Barry, who will form the Sonic Death Monkey band before the film is out, is outlandishly hilarious.

Although Rob has had a lot of girlfriends (Lisa Bonet, Joelle Carter, Iben Hjejle, Lili Taylor, Natasha Gregson Wagner and Catherine Zeta-Jones), he considers himself a failure when it comes to relationships since none of them have lasted. His most important top-5 list is that of his biggest breakups. Besides humorous flashbacks about his previous failures at sex and at relationships, there are many current episodes as he interviews his ex-girlfriends to find out what went wrong.

Easily half of dialog occurs with Cusack talking directly to the camera. His soliloquies are heavily laced with self-deprecating humor, and he has a hangdog look that says "dump me" on his forehead. "He's grumpy, he's broke and he hangs out with the musical moron twins," Rob says of himself, asking himself how in the world he attracts these great looking women in the first place?

Rob's most recent girlfriend and the one that gets the most screen time is Laura, played warmly and fetchingly by Iben Hjejle from MIFUNE. Their chemistry together has the definite spark that his other relationships lacked.

In one of his best performances ever, Cusack is absolutely delightful. Sympathetic, funny, sweet and sad, Cusack's Rob is a person that everyone can identify with in some way.

The movie is fresh and original, thanks to a great script by D.V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink, John Cusack and Scott Rosenberg, based on DeVincentis's novel, and it contains a large number of big laughs. And, as you might guess, it has a killer soundtrack.

A good-spirited and funny film, HIGH FIDELITY has to go on the top of your must-see list if you're a John Cusack fan. And, for the few of you who aren't, this movie should serve to change your mind.

HIGH FIDELITY runs 1:47. It is rated R for sexuality and language and would be fine for most teenagers.

Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews