A Comedy for Adults

Rating: 10/10 (12 February 2013)

John Cusack has made a career out of playing offbeat, off-center characters. High Fidelity could well be his finest hour.
The movie centers on the trials and tribulations of the love life of Rob Gordon. Rob runs a used record store (as in, they sell vinyl), and he likes to put not just music, but various aspects of his life in the context of "top 5" lists.
When the story starts, we see Laura, Rob's most recent girlfriend, leave him, prompting him to come up with, "My desert island, all-time, top- five most memorable breakups, in chronological order, are as follows...(various names) Can you see your name on that list, Laura? Maybe you'd sneak into the top ten. But there's just no room for you in the top five, sorry! Those places are reserved for the kind of humiliation and heartbreak you're just not capable of delivering." Rob then proceeds to give a recap of his various misadventures in love, starting with his first breakup in grade school. He also talks extensively about the highs and lows of his relationship with Laura. Of course, we find out that Laura's departure has gotten to Rob a lot more than he initially admits. Rob talks to the camera throughout this movie, much in the same way he might talk to his therapist about his life, his loves, his friends and his hopes and dreams.
In between flashbacks, we meet some of the quirky people in Rob's life, most notably Barry and Dick (played by Jack Black and Todd Louiso), the two cultural rejects who work for him at the record store. Along with Rob, they like to fancy themselves as pop music aficionados and look down on the musically undiscriminating masses (Barry is especially annoying in this regard, even refusing to sell a record to a potential customer and treating him like garbage simply because, "he offended me with his terrible taste!").
Cusack is great at playing characters who are borderline insane, and this movie is definitely no exception. One passage pretty much sums up this flick: After Charlie, #3 on his list (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones) dumps him, Rob essentially goes nuts and rants on the street outside her window, "Charlie! You f#%ing b!tch!! Let's work it out!!" Then there's the scene where Rob fantasizes about pounding the stuffing out of the condescending and pretentious Ray (aka Ian), "the other guy" Laura's been seeing (played by Tim Robbins).
High Fidelity is a terrific story about life and love with intelligent, clever, thoughtful dialog and memorable, quirky characters that draw you right in. It's far too innovative and non-formulaic to be classified as your basic rom com, but it's definitely a good one to see with a date.