High Fidelity
While Nick Hornby’s book seemed to bask in pointing out the immaturity of his characters, the movie adaptation goes out of its way to make you empathise with John Cusack, who always makes a great “everyman” protagonist, and is at his best here as the commitment-phobic, record-collecting, romantically neurotic Rob Gordon. In fact I flat-out identified with this guy, which really shouldn’t be the case when he talks how material possessions like records and books not only matter – but are an integral part of our essence, of who we are. That it is the songs we love and the films we enjoy that define us. Huh, maybe it’s not so surprising that a guy writing about movies to absolutely nobody over the Internet identifies with that after all.
Negatives? The girl fucking annoys me. I think it’s a mix of the character and the actress. I find it hard to watch the end of the film when they get back together because she annoys me so much. Watching the film this time around I managed to convince myself that you’re not meant to like her – that she is supposed to be annoying. The more I think about that theory the less convinced I am. It is probably because of this that I prefer the more frivolous first half of the film, which Rob spends tracking down former girlfriends to try and figure out what went wrong. The actresses here are all superb – including Catherine Zeta Jones who I usually think is Blandy McBlandBland. In fact this film is crammed with great cameos and bit parts – the Tim Robbins scenes are bound to be among the favourite of anyone who has seen this. And rightly so.
Of course this is the film that made Jack Black a household name. He plays the perfect music snob, the kind of guy who thinks everyone should love the same music as he does, yet would fucking hate it if they did. So aggressively passionate, he is complimented by the other guy. Y’know, the bald fragile guy. The actor, whoever he is, underplays his character to perfection making him and Black a hilarious odd couple.
If you’ve ever made a mix-tape for someone you liked, alphabetised your CD collection on a rainy day, or remember certain songs as being the soundtrack to periods in your life, then this film is for you. High Fidelity is a chick flick for dudes. This is our Bridget Jones Diary. And I mean that in the best possible way.