High Fidelity

Movie review by Jody Beth Rosen

This ain't some MTV hack job.

The proof is in the posters. And the album covers. And the T-shirts, stickers, and other incidentals that make themselves known as extras in the movie adaptation of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. As the characters carry out their dialogue, audience members' eyes may be drawn to that vinyl copy of Sleater-Kinney's Dig Me Out or The Silver Jews' American Water. This is obviously a movie made by the sort of neurotic geeks it portrays, and it shows.

Watching John Cusack take on the role of Hornby's antihero Rob Fleming (whose surname is, for whatever reason, changed to Gordon for the movie -- is Fleming too ethnic for those proverbial Peorians?), I get the impression that this is a guy who's absorbed the book into his pores, his very being, the way many of my friends (and I) have. He's read the book, loaned it to his significant other, bought copies for friends and extra copies for himself and his significant other's friends. Et cetera. That's the kind of mania this book has inspired; consider it a sort of Angela's Ashes with Clash references instead of Guinness. My ex-boyfriend and I both saw it separately the day of its release, and within hours we were on the phone to each other (even though we're now 3,000 miles apart), discussing the success of the movie adaptation, our disappointment over certain changes ("I just don't understand why they couldn't keep Barrytown as the name of Barry's band -- it's named after a Steely Dan song, and it's one of the best jokes in the book!"), pleasant surprises ("I knew from the first scene, when it opened with a 13th Floor Elevators song, that this movie was gonna be the real deal."), and things that reminded us of our own relationship ("When Laura said all that stuff about not wanting to tell Rob whether she'd slept with the new guy because Rob wouldn't want to know the answer, I related so much to that").

And Cusack must have been imbued with this mania as well to become Rob, become him the way Jim Carrey "became" Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon. Cusack's personality as Rob is like the musical moods of a well-made mix tape, in fact: a good combination of happy-frenetic and angry-frenetic, as well as melancholy and introspective, but never for too long.

Of course, I speak as if everyone I'm addressing with this review has read High Fidelity; I don't know too many people who haven't at this point. The basic plot rundown: Music Dweeb's Girlfriend (played by Iben Hjejle) leaves Music Dweeb, forcing Music Dweeb to reevaluate his dating history, his luck (or lack of luck) with women, and his priorities as a lover and, more importantly, a person. During all this soul-searching, Music Dweeb harbors some ugly jealousies involving his now ex-girlfriend, who has run off with their former upstairs neighbor, who may be named either Ian or Ray, or I. Raymond (Tim Robbins, playing a sleazy, ponytailed Lothario with a yen for current world-music trends and a career in "conflict resolution").

Why is Rob a music dweeb? What does this have to do with the love story at hand? Well, see, he's really neurotic and methodical, but he's got soul (Oh. Funny line in both the movie and the book: Girl walks up to the counter of Rob's record store and asks "Do you have soul?" He stares at her wistfully, says "Depends," and mutters something to the effect of "It's over there, with the blues"). Trying to keep himself occupied after the breakup, Rob reorganizes his entire record collection according to the time in his life when each particular record was purchased -- a subtle mastery of character development if I've ever seen one, showing both a compulsive orderedness and a willingness to take stock of his life.

The characters in High Fidelity are, in general, very real, very hard to suss out. Rob learns this when he catches a couple of skate punks stealing armfuls of albums, including a record by Serge Gainsbourg. When Rob questions what these dumb kids are doing with such a varied selection of discs, they get offended that Rob would underestimate their tastes. When Rob's superopinionated, loud-mouthed employee, Barry (Jack Black), chases off a well-meaning, painfully unhip customer looking for a single of "I Just Called to Say I Love You," Rob sympathizes with the customer instead of joining in Barry's mockery. When Dick, Rob's other employee (a shy, awkward guy whose entire raison d'être is imports and bonus tracks and out-of-print singles by artists you've never heard of or thought of owning an album by, oh, and huzzah to Todd Louiso for giving a terrific, understated performance and managing to look like both Ian Mackaye and Art Carney), is approached by a collegiate-looking young woman (Sara Gilbert) seeking the latest Green Day album, he flirts with her and tries to point her towards albums by The Clash and Stiff Little Fingers, without a hint of snootiness.

Sometimes in movies it's difficult to create a full picture of a human being in a couple of hours. With the exception of Laura (Rob's ex-girlfriend), who just seems boring and bland -- OK, here's where I blame the screenwriters (Cusack, Steve Pink, D.V. DeVincentis, and Scott Rosenberg), because Hornby's Laura is a bit more feisty and with-it, a bit more like the woman you'd expect to see Rob with -- all the characters in this movie are well-drawn -- sympathetic, even. The main love story (between Rob and Laura) would be all the more engaging if Laura were a more clearly defined character an audience could get to know and care about. But such movie roles rarely exist for women, let alone men. That there's a character as convincing and empathetic as Rob in a major motion picture is downright miraculous.

All nitpickings aside, it's a considerably faithful adaptation. Even though some basic things have changed (the setting has been bumped up a few years into the late '90s and moved from London to Chicago), the spirit and humor that made the book are still there. Most of the musical references are still there, with a few new ones thrown in (Belle and Sebastian didn't exist when High Fidelity was written, but a song of theirs shows up in a scene).

The movie is American; the book is British. But it's a very British movie. It was directed by Stephen Frears, the Brit director responsible for Dangerous Liasons, The Snapper, and many other acclaimed films. It moves along with the pace and verbal economy (and often, obscurity) of a Monty Python episode. Cusack himself has a British face. He looks like a young John Lennon. And he's gorgeous, easing into kind of a frumpy, adorable bearishness as he grows out of his teen-hunk years.

There's so much to look at, and notice, and feel, and think about, and grow to love with High Fidelity that it seems to fly by. I'm so happy I just want tosend its creators a mix tape as a gesture of my appreciation. It's a fucking triumph is what it is.

Email Jody Beth Rosen

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