Top five things thus far written about the film High Fidelity by critics other than myself: 1. "The movie looks like it was easy to make--but it must not have been because movies this wry and likable hardly ever get made. Usually a clunky plot gets in the way, or the filmmakers are afraid to let their characters seem too smart." (Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun Times) 2. "It's hard to remember the last time guys were nailed so perceptively and dragged into adulthood so warmly and entertainingly." (Jay Carr, The Boston Globe) 3. "It's the first great date movie of 2000." (Joe Leydon, Variety) 4. "Few actors could pull off the amount of narration required of Rob without becoming instantly annoying; even fewer could make self-absorption somewhat sympathetic." (Scott Renshaw, Scott Renshaw's Screening Room) 5. "I enjoyed myself immensely." (Desson Howe, Washington Post)

Aa good mix-tape should, the above compilation of quotations summarizes my positive feelings on High Fidelity. The film is perceptive and enjoyable, the most precisely-aimed men's movie since Swingers. Youthful guys will see themselves in loquacious Rob (John Cusack, prototypically charming), a self-pitying record-store owner intent on deciphering the mystery behind his string of failed relationships. The first question he asks himself is, "What came first: the music or the misery?" Do sad songs ruin us, or do we gravitate towards them after a heartbreak as a form of therapy? A chicken/egg scenario if there ever was one.

This is what the fanatical do; I tend to filter all of my life experiences, for better or worse, through my knowledge and appreciation of cinema, because it helps me to contextualize my emotions. Rob prisms the minutiae of his existence through music: a quintet of break-ups is related to us as another of his fanboy Top 5 lists, but what he's really doing is playing the frustrated musician: wittily recounting his unsuccessful love life--directly for the camera, no less--is perhaps the closest he'll ever come to releasing an EP. (To get personal again, many movie critics are actually stymied filmmakers, and though it's left largely unexplored, I'm assuming that an absence of viable musical talent is what leads Rob to disc-jockeying and obsessively mixing compilation tapes for others. They're both vicarious methods of attaining a faint taste of rock-star glory.)

Of course, when we meet Rob, he's experiencing the misery instead of the music whole. Spinning records in his dingy apartment, a veritable vinyl cellar, he's merely listening to the notes--unlike his two hired hands, Rob's passion for music seems to rollercoaster in tune with his love life. (He's also organizing his personal collection "autobiographically," effectively deintellectualizing the albums themselves.) Those aforementioned employees are Dick (Todd Louiso), a timid buff of all songs angst-ridden, and Barry (Jack Black), the sort of elitist one anticipates meeting in a comic-book shop: fat, abrasive, contrarian. Barry will loudly, proudly, desperately shove his knowledge in the face of a customer, and even refuse service to someone he deems ignorant. (Surprise, surprise: Barry wants to form a band, ill-content with his zealot status.) Black's character is largely responsible for the movie's vitality as a portrait of the record-peddling milieu.

Laura (Iben Hjejle), Rob's most recent dating casualty, has paralyzed him with self-examination; managing "Championship Vinyl" (the sign is missing the "SH") is the only thing getting him out of bed in the morning, but it's not enough to keep his spirits up. He'll sit idly by as Barry abuses a potential buyer, and his Top 5 lists take on a spectacular banality. (Barry chides him for including the obvious "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on a rundown of the 'best first songs of side ones.') Eventually, Rob contacts old flames (two of whom are played, in cameo, by The Haunting's duo of Lili Taylor and Catherine Zeta-Jones), hoping they'll shed some new light on his perennial girl trouble.

Don't allow his current reputation as a mounter of gloomy, expensive period pieces (Dangerous Liaisons and Mary Reilly) to deceive you: Stephen Frears was an ingenious choice of director for High Fidelity. The source book, by Nick Hornby, takes place in London, and hiring a UK-born helmer was perhaps its only shot at retaining a British sensibility in the cinematic shift to Chicago. (It has, profoundly so.) B-sides, these kinds of working class love/hate stories, were Frears' domain once upon a time, as his Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and Prick Up Your Ears demonstrate. (Additionally in his favour: Frears had worked with Cusack before, on The Grifters, and so he understands how to modulate Cusack's rhythms.)

Perhaps I mischaracterized High Fidelity as a "men's movie" above, as the males at my screening were noticeably squirmy throughout, even as they laughed uproariously. Rather, it's a movie that those women looking for an inside track on the male species would do well to attend. It's a testament to Cusack's familiar screen presence that his character isn't totally despicable by story's end (or maybe he is, but my gender bias is getting in the way), as he is largely and often cruelly responsible for the death of all his affairs. One particularly unflattering moment sees habitual fuck-up Rob celebrating the possibility of reunion with Laura by bedding the first available girl he can find. (He's not afraid of commitment, you see--he's afraid of committing to the wrong girl.)

Rob, Barry, and Dick have been fully realized by a team of excellent writers, as have all sequences that take place inside "CHAMPION IP"; I was notably moved by a scene depicting communion among shoppers over The Beta Band's "Dry The Rain": it captures the familial vibe one gets while visiting these hole-in-the-wall downtown record emporiums. Not quite as fleshed-out is Laura, spoken of as having personality to spare but never getting the chance to reveal enough of it in our company. (Although Hjejle, a Danish actress affecting an American accent, has a singular presence that works in the movie's favour.) Far more problematic is Tim Robbins as Laura's tentative boyfriend Ian, for his sole defining character trait becomes a ponytail.

A few late-in-the-game turns of the plot are also underdeveloped. It's a shame, for instance, that we never get to see the production of a low-rent CD that figures prominently into the climax, because, in the words of director George Roy Hill (via William Goldman), "The audience loves 'how-to.'" Luckily, the movie's breezy confidence smoothes over these rough patches. Twenty years from now, they'll be calling High Fidelity a Golden Oldie; Frears' latest excited me out of a Rob-like funk (pertaining to the state of American Cinema) with convincing mise-en-scène, compelling leads, an unpredictable soundtrack, and observant humour. It already feels from a bygone era.-Bill Chambers

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Published: April, 2000