A Man's outlook on life - and music!

Rating: 9/10 (24 October 2007)

*High Fidelity SPOILERS*
Rob Gordon (John Cusack) has just been left by his girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjejle), who's just moved out and, it seems, in with Rob's martial-arts practitioner, world-music listener upstairs neighbor Ian Raymond (Tim Robbins).
This brings him to ponder about what he's accomplished this far in his life, which isn't much; he opened a record store called 'Championship Vinyl' which, to borrow a Martin Balsam line from Psycho, looks like it was intentionally hidden, and has two 'employees' (they wondered in one day and he decided to keep them); the meek and quiet Dick (Todd Louiso) and the boorish, arrogant and just plain obnoxious Barry (Jack Black) who's such a snob he drives a client off just because he asked for a vinyl of 'I Just Called To Say I Love You', and and basically thinks he's better than anyone else, and... well, not much else.
So, he decides to make a Top 5 of the five girls who broke his heart the hardest and see them again, to understand why he's always been dumped, and in the search he'll find himself and a new direction...
Very cleverly, this comedy offered a quite realistic view of a man's outlook on life and relationships, all the while remaining genuinely funny and faithful to the original awesome novel (even with the London/Chicago switch), which took a team of talented writers, among whom main star Cusack. The director is very good and so are the actors - even though I wanted to kick Jack Black's character in the teeth right after he made his obnoxious entrance, and kept on wanting to for the whole film.
And of course the music; and to complete the package, a cameo from the Boss Bruce Springsteen, giving Rob some advice.
Don't miss this!
High Fidelity: 9/10.