Top five romantic comedies of this decade so far - number 1...High Fidelity

Rating: 10/10 (10 January 2005)

Stephen Frears' analysis of one man's love life is a very personal tale of love, told by our hero; Rob Gordon (John Cusack). Despite being predominantly a tale about a love life, High Fidelity also finds time to be a very hip musical study, as well as integrating a fistful of hilarious lines and sequences. As mentioned, the film pans out from the perspective of Rob Gordon; an insecure young man that cant hold a relationship down and so embarks on a personal voyage of discovery to find out why he's doomed to be left. What follows is a journey through Gordon's 'top 5' break-up's, and present insecurities and through this a complete three dimensional portrait of the character is painted in front of the audience's eyes. The way the story is presented is dynamic and makes the film easy to like. Of course, the fact that it's carried by the charismatic John Cusack and features the awesome comedy talents of Jack Black doesn't exactly do it any harm eitherÂ…
This film is a very different take on the classic romantic comedy as the humour is very potent, much more so than the easy humour that the genre usually leaves us with. The music in the film is mostly of the indie pop persuasion, but despite this; it gives it a distinct sense of cool, and puts the film at the 'cutting edge', so to speak. The film is excellently cast, but I don't think there is another actor in existence that could have played Rob Gordon like John Cusack does. He's believable in the role because he's good looking, but he also has that sort of self loathing atmosphere about himself, which is put to good use in this movie. Cusack has spent far too much time in the romantic comedy genre and it's a shame because his talents could be used well elsewhere, but here he makes the film his own and this is definitely one romantic comedy that I'm glad he did make.
High Fidelity is a rare thing; a romantic comedy that is original, hilarious and quite touching all in one go. Rom-com's like this don't come around often and this is one that you will not want to miss!