Saved By The Beta Band . Pronounced as Bee-Ta

Rating: 6/10 (14 July 2013)

I used to work with a bloke called Alan who used to torture me by bringing in his I-Pod and playing his favourite tracks which more often than not were of Radiohead . It's no exaggeration to say I had to sometimes endure ten hours of non stop Radiohead . Very occasionally by accident rather than design he'd play a track I might like such as Dirt by Death In Vegas . One day he played a track by an act I'd vaguely heard of called The Beta Band . I instantly stopped working as a track was played utterly and helplessly hypnotized by the beauty of the song . The song was Dry The Rain and became the soundtrack of what was an up and down job I had but mainly ups and every time I listen to Dry The Rain I'm reminded of very happy memories mainly of Alan's girlfriend Maria who I'd sometimes share a smile with , or a cigarette or if I was really lucky an existentialist conversation on the meaning of life
That's the problem adapting a book like Nick Hornby's HIGH FIDELITY . We're asked to empathise not only with a character on screen but also to remember our own life experience . You can read about it on the printed page and picture yourself in the protagonists place and that's the whole point . We are the surrogate protagonist . It's very difficult to do with on screen visual images that are patently not us especially when they look like John Cusack and speak with an American accent
HIGH FIDELITY possibly isn't a novel that's unfilmable but having the character of Rob Gordon constantly break down the figurative fourth wall and address the audience is a risky venture . You'll probably quickly come to the conclusion that you'll love this or hate this and I afraid I didn't love this concept at all . Changing the setting from Britain to America doesn't do the story any favours since you're constantly distracted as to how Americans at the turn of the century are aware of obscure bands like Belle and Sebastian or perhaps even The Smiths . Director Stephen Frears is a Brit and it shows a little too much as he's under the impression that American record buyers of 2000 are the Anglophile music lovers of the 1980s which they certainly were not when this film was released or even when the original source novel was written . Ironically the film might have worked better with a director who was younger and American
That said it was very nice hearing the criminally underrated The Beta Band get a name check and a snippet of Dry The Rain and if nothing else this makes the film worth watching . Of course even this dubious value is undermined by Rob referring to them as " The bet-ah band " which just goes to show even if an American knows their music they haven't a clue about the English language and one wonders how this atrocity of pronunciation slipped by the British director ?