High Fidelity Review by Michael Lee

One of the things that you may wonder about with this site is why do we review non-science fiction and fantasy films? I could give the easy answer that if Tim Wick sends them to me, I'm going to put it up, as it means more content for the site. And actually, our most popular review to date is Tim's Topsy-Turvey to Review, so that has been justified. It is also that I don't want to set an editorial policy on what count as "science fiction and fantasy". Covering things from the "geek perspective" or the "misfit perspective" regardless of genre can broaden our horizons.

So now I get to High Fidelity, the new John Cusack movie. I have not read the book that this is based on, but I'm intrigued that the book is based in London, but the movie takes the setting and situation of the book and moves it to Chicgo, and I don't know what impact that had on the movie. But I think it does show that the story deals with things that are beyond the simple setting. Like Chasing Amy, one of my favorite films, it is a romantic comedy from the male perspective, and actually, from a male geek perspective.

Because Rob Gordon, John Cusack's character in High Fidelity, is a geek. True, he's a record-store owning geek, but the habit of making top five lists, the obscure trivia, obsessing about what order to put your collection in, it's what we live by, of course! And I know for me, at least, you also take the music that you play around you and make it your own personal autobiography. So I found this movie to be very easy to associate with, which I don't do for a lot of romantic comedies, where everyone is either too unbelievably perfect or too stupid to be believed.

The cast is all decent. I like John Cusack in almost every film I see him in, and he's certainly the center of the film. His character is flawed and fallible, but because of that real and believable. His ability to deny that he has any responsiblity for his relationships failing is quite true to life. His two geekier employees at his record store are hysterical, and the scenes between the three of them are the highlight of the film. Tim Robbins makes an amusing appearance as John Cusack's romantic rival. Iben Hjejle is the main actress, and while she does a good job, she's not particularly memorable in the movie. Unsurprisingly, Joan Cusack gets the most comedic scenes of any of the actresses in the movie. Catherine Zeta-Jones is in the movie, course, to be stunningly beautiful, but as a more cameo role, it isn't as overt as in some of her other films. Lisa Bonet is quite believable as a musician, I was convinced that we were getting a cameo from someone who actually was, like we actually do get in the movie!

High Fidelity isn't a flawless film -- it drags on a bit, doing flashback sequences with people in super-1980s costumes has been done a lot lately. It rains at the right time just once too often. I never quite see that there was chemistry between John Cusack's character and his girlfriend, but some of that is certainly the stage and situation of their relationship through most of the movie.

High Fidelity is still the best movie I've seen yet this year, and I recommend it, four out of five beakers.

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High Fidelity

Four out of Five Beakers