Flak Magazine: Review of High Fidelity, 04-03-00

The man who endeared himself to a nation of truly alternative music listeners (you know who you are, rudegirl) with the edgy and outrageously tasteful soundtrack for Grosse Pointe Blank has returned. High Fidelity is his new film, and it's a modern tale of romance and music set in the heart of good-ol' "roll up your working-class sleeves and scratch that record" Chicago.

In High Fidelity, an adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel of the same name, Cusack's love for all music that is aggressively independent (or, arguably, just "good,") has spilled over from the soundtrack into the film itself. The songs of High Fidelity serve as the real engine for this somewhat conventional but pleasantly-nuanced wallow through a man's breakup and the ensuing self-analysis, played across a personal backdrop of insecurity, masculine skittishness and poor judgment.

Shades of Woody Allen haunt High Fidelity, but when you try to paint a picture of youth culture in Chicago (rather than sketching out Manhattan as a stomping ground for urbane professionals), the resemblance is only passing. Sure, you've got a neurotic guy talking to the camera about the nuances of his inner turmoil while taking you on a guided tour of a metropolis that's bigger than any of us. But Allen likes ragtime, and Cusack likes "The Clash." It makes for a remarkably different movie.

High Fidelity ostensibly turns on the following premise: Rob Gordon (Cusack) is the owner of a small, struggling record store, employing Dick (Todd Louiso) and Barry (Jack Black), two young men blessed with far more knowledge of music than social acumen. Dick is a quiet, vaguely annoying encyclopedia of indie pop — Barry is loud, jumpy and scornful of anyone with command of less musical trivia than himself. And that's almost everyone, including most of the store's patrons.

This ragtag team of musical scholars gives "High Fidelity" its considerable heart and soul, as they sling casual but authoritative references to bands like Stereolab, the Beta Band and Belle and Sebastian across the aisles of Championship Vinyl. Anyone who has ever really shopped for records will appreciate where Rob and his cronies are coming from, even as Barry takes his pent-up hostilities out on perfectly nice (if undereducated) customers.

Meanwhile, Rob's relationship with beautiful, successful and stable Laura (ably played by Iben Hjejle) is in the process of completely tanking, assisted by his tendency to find new women exciting far out of proportion to their actual potential.

But while High Fidelity may try to sell itself as a relationship flick, it's less a profound reflection about how humans fall in love than a chronicle of Chicago's throbbing indie scene. Cusack wears Wax Trax T-shirts, hangs out at Lounge Ax and gets rained on while the El goes by — how much more Chicago can we get?

Speaking of which: The film has few problems, but rain is one of them. It's one thing to puncuate a scene of intense emotional distress with the cathartic and dramatic presence of a well-timed rainstorm. Heck, it worked for Ingmar Bergman. But three (or more) times in one film might be a bit much.

It did not seem particularly unreasonable to hope that the camera might pan backward a bit to show the sprinklers, or back further still to show the hand of God at the spigot, blessing Cusack's emotional turmoil with a big deluge of mood-related moisture.

One might argue that since Hornby's original novel was set in the rainy isles of Great Britain, the deluge might be more excusable, but the rain itself isn't the issue. It's the timing that's less-than-subtle, and that's the problem.

This aside, High Fidelity is an enjoyable spin through the challenges and aftershocks of intimate relationships layered over a highly respectful and, for the length of the film, comprehensive look at a particular place and time. To borrow a friend's phrase, it's like The Breakfast Club, all grown up.

Cusack, while not particularly brilliant in a role that doesn't seem like much of a reach for him, is solid, and holds the film together with a performance that has exactly the right sort of manic sincerity to make the plot click forward. Todd Louiso and Jack Black are both terrific — if you're going to make a record store the heart of your film, you need a stout team of character actors to make it work. Black and Louiso both deliver, but Louiso is particularly great - he plays Dick with a shy, distracted, winningly autistic flair that is unforgettable.

And while Cosby kid Lisa Bonet is jaw-droppingly unremarkable in her turn as the singer who distracts Rob's heart, a strong, engaging performance by Iben Hjejle as Rob's girlfriend Laura shines through, and gracefully makes Cusack's solo a duet. Hjejle, who is rumored to have started acting as a way to escape the unpronouncability of her own last name, brings to Laura a presence that is both solid and dynamic. She's clearly a woman who is under emotional siege — and surviving it.

With its solid performances, bumpin' soundtrack and thoughtful portrayal of one of America's most vibrant underground scenes, High Fidelity gets in a groove and stays there.

— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)