High Fidelity

Stephen Frears, USA, 2000, 113 minutes

Stop reading this. Now, look around. Do you see an alphabetised record collection? If you do, now ask yourself what are your top 5 reasons for watching films?

Welcome to the haphazard existance of record shop-owner Rob Gordon (John Cusack), a man who only obsesses about one thing more than his music: his ex-girlfriends. We join Rob as he’s just split up with the last of a long string of partners, and follow his quest to discover why, through the endless quantification of his life, they keep leaving him.

High Fidelity is the best adaptation of one of Nick Hornby’s books to date; far surpassing the somewhat saccharine About a Boy, and the football fetishism of Fever Pitch. Even with the relocation to the US, the central theme of the book is perfectly captured and the casting is ideal; especially Jack Black and Tod Louiso as Barry and Dick, the guys who were “hired for three days a week and they just started showing up every day. That was four years ago.”

It’s got fantastic dialogue, a hugely entertaining plot and John Cusack at his coolest since Grosse Pointe Blank. What more do you want?

Review by Max Schreck Jr.
Written for EUFS Programme Spring 2004