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Few things have the potential to brighten an otherwise mundane boxoffice week like a new John Cusack movie -- especially one that dares address the eternal question, "Which came first, the music or the misery?"
Cusack plays Rob Gordon, 30-ish owner of an underachieving little Chicago record shop. As in, records -- black, plastic, 33 1/3 r.p.m., long-playing phonograph records. It's bad enough going-nowhere Rob must constantly address survival in a business that's barely as profitable as servicing steam-powered cars. He also has to contend with two emotionally antipodal employees who were hired on part-time but gradually staked out permanent residence in the store: mousy, socially maladroit Dick (Todd Louiso, who was the similarly music-elitist nanny Chad in Jerry Maguire), and Barry (Tenacious D singer and all-around wild man Jack Black), a loud, manic, tact-challenged but eloquent audiophile given to mercilessly berating customers for their poor taste in listening material. And as if that weren't ample distraction, Rob is facing the departure of current long-term girlfriend Laura (Danish actress Iben Hjejle, thoroughly real-world pretty and charming and quite non-Nordic despite no previous English-language film experience), who has apparently run out of patience for his stagnant, tape-loop life.
Overcome with funk, Rob spends an obligatory shock phase wallowing in "sad-bastard music" and speaking to the camera, leading to the observation stated in the first paragraph, and an equally thoughtful follow-on: "Everyone worries about...the culture of violence. Nobody worries about [the effects of listening to]...literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery, and loss." Or as my mom recalled the other day, for no apparent reason, about my teen penchant for Neil Young, "You always listened to such sad music."
Looking for answers to his lack of any enduring success with women -- or anything else, for that matter -- Rob compiles and flashes back to a Top 5 list (one of several sprinkled throughout the film) of heartbreaks. Even more masochistically, he tracks down the supposedly guilty femmes, beginning with his first girlfriend all the way back in junior high, to ascertain their reasons for such onerous dumpage. Wouldn't you know it, the memories have been more than a little distorted by lenses of time, bitterness and hormones.
At which realization, things take quite an interesting, and realistic (well, realistic for a movie, anyway) turn.
Co-written and -produced by the same team that helped Cusack craft the enjoyably quirky Gross Pointe Blank, High Fidelity is an engaging film that gives an excellent cast a lot of cogent things to say about both love and music. Jack Black, whose supporting roles have lent much texture to such movies as Mars Attacks and Enemy of the State, nearly runs away with his every scene, providing respite from some of the more serious goings-on. The rest of the cast, which includes Lili Taylor and Catherine Zeta-Jones (in the best bit of acting she's done yet, which, granted, isn't saying much, but she's really convincing in this smaller part) as Rob ex's, Tim Robbins as the Steven Seagall-ish rival for Laura's affection (he's the victim of hilarious fantasy mayhem), and Lisa Bonet as a sultry, laissez-faire singer, are also very good, and earn my first nomination for Best Ensemble of the year.
Top 5 Recently Released Smart Movies:
1) High Fidelity
2) ...uhh, hmm -- get the point? A
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