A few weeks after the Oscars'® American Beauty lovefest, one of the most popular movies among those of us who work in the Rhino crash seems to be the much-lower profile High Fidelity. As the title suggests, it covers ground very near and dear to the hearts of us record folk, which is why it's due more than the usual movie review...
Based upon a novel by Nick Hornby, the film revolves around a character named Rob (played convincingly by John Cusack), a thirtysomething year-old pop music geek whose business, a collector-oriented record shop, flounders almost as much as his love life. To him and his coworker/fellow music geek pals, Dick the nervous nerd (Todd Louiso) and Barry the musical fascist (Jack Black of Tenacious D), people are defined by their tastes and can be reduced to Top Five lists because that's how the guys define themselves. (Rob at one point says, "It's what you like, not what you are like that's important.") Dick and Barry pretty much restrict the "list" thing to music--"Top Five First Cut/Side A Album Tracks," anyone?--where Rob also uses it as a way to analyze and torture himself over his series of failed romantic relationships. And we are treated to each ex-girlfriend in both flashbacks as well as in the form of him confronting and asking them one-by-one in the present day "Why?" for the purpose of psychological closure, better known as sanity.
I don't want to get into the specifics of the plot much beyond that, but I'll give you my impressions. Overall, I thought that the director, Stephen Frears, and everyone in the cast did a great job. The influence of Woody Allen--the ultimate cinematic nerd whose saving grace is his undeniable talent and sharp wit--is felt in High Fidelity, particularly in the lead character's self-pity and his amusing "talk-to-the-camera" ruminations about his love life, or lack thereof. I don't know anything about author Nick Hornby, but I'm assuming that he must be a pop music geek himself. It's unlikely that he could have gotten inside the heads and the mentality of that male-dominated subculture so dead-on as a mere observer.
The thing is that I feel as if I know--I do know--the people that populate this film. I'm one of them as are several of my friends. Much as we hate to admit it--and Rob, Dick, and Barry are called to task for it by one of the store's hip customers who doesn't take his own "cultivated" opinions too seriously--we are a bunch of elitist snobs where music is concerned. (The irony here is that pop culture by definition is supposed to be anything but elitist.) We view ourselves as being musically hip and "above" those who aren't in the Know. The occasional "guilty pleasure" is allowed, but if the guilty pleasure is the rule instead of the exception, then it is viewed as almost as much of a Mortal Sin as a character flaw, and you can't belong to the Club. (In our minds, your average Joe is so clueless that he's totally oblivious to the fact that he should feel guilty over liking music that isn't textbook hip.) We don't write letters, we make compilation tapes--in which the compilation "rules" are an exact science--to express our feelings, as we see Rob doing on more than one occasion in the film. 'Course, a lot of us are also lonely, unmarried guys (like those in the movie) who prioritize owning as large and eclectic of a music collection (alphabetized, of course) as humanly possible over joining the world of full-fledged adulthood. Our dream girls are those who are music geeks like ourselves, but they must also be physically attractive regardless of what we look like, and it's extremely rare when we find them. And it's even rarer when we find one that we like who likes us in return. (In this case, Rob has a brief fling with a sexy singer played by Lisa Bonet--remember her?--and contemplates dating a very cute music critic.) If the girlfriend is not a music geek (as is the case 99.9% of the time), then, if we had our druthers, she must defer to her more "enlightened" boyfriend whenever the stereo is turned on in his presence, which is one of the reasons--also, prolonged adolescence, maybe?--why so many of us continually end up alone.
In short, those who take their pop music seriously will definitely be able to relate to and enjoy much of what is in this movie. And for the rest of you, it's a solid non-formulaic romantic comedy with an edge told from the guy's point of view with a cool soundtrack.
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