High
Fidelity
(2000)
Rated: R
Runtime: 1 Hour and 53 Minutes
Reviewer: Dale
Grade: AWhy I Loved High Fidelity (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Yet Another Cusack Flick)
I don't know exactly when this love for all things John Cusack started exactly, or why. Who can tell? I know that I had barely even heard of him before the summer after graduating high school. I knew him only as one of the geeky kids in "Sixteen Candles" and the older brother in "Stand By Me". I think that, perhaps, it was the previews for "Con Air" and "Grosse Pointe Blanke" which introduced me to him. There was something about John that I loved almost immediately. Perhaps it was his handsome yet self-deprecating looks. Maybe it was the openness of his face and the wily innocence in his eyes. Perhaps it was the way he exudes coolness from every pore... even when he's playing someone rather pathetic.... as he is in "High Fidelity".
I read the book of "High Fidelity" less than two weeks ago and I polished it off within a week. Yes, it isn't all that long, but still. That's pretty good for me. Usually it take me like a month to read anything. I only get motivated to read during breaks and lunch hours at Wal Mart. (Yes, ha, ha, I know where I work, don't rub it in.) But I absolutely loved it. It was about men who work at a video store and fill their empty lives with pop culture (movies and music and the like) and are total disasters when it comes to dating.
Sadly, I can relate.
It's a wonderful, screwball film based on a wonderful, truthful, slightly screwball book and I loved it. It took the book and simply transplanted it to the screen, which is really cool. I liked the device of John Cusack talking directly to the camera. It let the filmmakers retain much of the great observations of the novel and let them add some wonderful little twists and jabs as well.
The entire cast does a good job. Jack Black is hilarious as the self-appointed expert of all recorded music. Todd Louiso is likewise very funny as a meek puppy who knows more about music than Jack, but lets his opinion be bulldozed in the interest of not starting a fight. And all the women seem very realistic, rather than Hollywood cartoon versions of real women.
But it's Cusack's show and he is brilliant. Every piece of his self-deprecating arsenal is put to fabulous use here and he is better than ever. (Then again, I have never seen "The Grifters", but I will, worry not). All in all, the best, most honest, most truthful film of the year, and easily the first movie in a long, long time (if ever) that I can really identify to. I mean, come on, I myself have had conversations with other guys about Top Five Songs About Death and the merits of Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn. Best Film of the Year (yes, I know I said that about "Wonder Boys", and it's still up there, but I hadn't seen this one when I said that, Okay).