Thank You, John Cusack!

Rating: 9/10 (2 April 2000)

John and his writing partners have done a wonderful job crafting a great movie from an entertaining book. The move from London to Chicago works out well, though initially I was a little put-off by the idea.
I first remember seeing John Cusack as Anthony Michael Hall's geek friend in "Sixteen Candles", arranging for a showing of Molly Ringwald's underwear in the boy's room during a school dance. You can imagine his character in this movie, Rob, having that history.
The record store denizens (employees and customers) are dead on; I used to spend many an hour skulking through cement-walled record stores searching for that elusive Smith's 12-inch single with James Dean on the cover. These record-store snobs just don't get it--they break down life into top five lists, without really participating in life at all. The character Rob, played by John Cusack, goes from relationship to relationship, never considering the girlfriend's point of view. In fact, his fidelity isn't high at all; he can't commit to anyone. Even at the end of the movie, when he has had an epiphany of sorts, you know that he still has far to go before he can deal with the reality of relationships. I think it pretty impressive that an American movie can end with this sort of ambivalence; usually characters do such an about-face by the end of a story-line that it becomes totally unbelievable. But Rob can only manage to change his life little by little, just like the rest of us poor slobs.
John Cusack is at his best in these small, character-driven films. Please God, don't let him do another "Con-Air" again; I'll even sacrifice my nearly mint-condition 1980 copy of O.M.D.'s Enola Gay, pressed in England, if that will help!