Go to movies like "Boiler Room," "American Psycho," and
"Keeping the Faith" and you get the impression that all
twenty-somethings in America have taken jobs with important
corporate firms or have become leaders in fields like religion
and law. But walk the streets of any city and you'll see a
landscape dotted with hundreds, maybe thousands of small
stores, each catering to specific needs of the citizens who
patronize them and who may never see the inside chambers
of huge establishments. Because these stores are operated
by people who are either too independent to work for others,
or who lacking specific types of education, or who are fairly
new to the country, you are likely to fund proprietors and their
associates who are quirky, who have personalities different
from those who wear pin-striped suits, are addicted to cell
phones, and may not give much of a damn about the
concerns of their supervisors.
"High Fidelity" is a whimsical film that captures the
temperament of some of these small retail people,
knowledgeable about their product, often so passionate about
what they sell that they may prefer discussing their
commodity with their customers to taking their money. The
movie is helmed by British director Stephen Frears with
loving attention to its principal character and is based on a
popular cult novel published in the UK in 1995 by Nick
Hornby. The story focuses on an attractive fellow, Rob
Gordon (John Cusack), who frequently breaks away from his
exchanges with lovers, customers, and fellow workers to talk
directly to the camera, as though he were performing in a
Shakespearean play. You may get impression--as I did--that
Rob's role could not have been better cast; that no one other
than John Cusack could have pulled off Rob's idiosyncratic
nature as a man of about thirty who obsesses so regularly
about his past loves that he fails to pay sufficient concern for
the women who rightfully demand his attention. =
Effectively, with quiet humor and restrained command,
director Frears guides Cusack into a series delicate
recollections from the times he tries to make out at school
parties through his more grounded affairs with a succession
of good-looking women. The film opens on Rob and his
current live-in woman, Laura (Iben Hjejle), just as Laura is
packed up, moving out, and ending her liaison with Rob.
In a meandering way that could alienate a young audience
accustomed to MTV, action pictures, and broad comedy,
"High Fidelity" takes us inside Rob's failing record business in
one of Chicago's scruffy, arty neighborhoods, Seamus
McGarvey's camera content to spend a good deal of time
among the retro product found in abundance throughout the
store. Rob specializes in vinyl records of pop music
exclusively, his two workers, Dick (Todd Louiso) and Barry
(Jack Black) happy to spend twice the time therein than they
were hired to do. Frears milks a good deal of the comedy
from these two characters who are so opposite in
temperament (Dick is a scholarly introvert while Barry is feisty
and opinionated) that we wonder how they get along so well. =
While Dick quietly discusses the music with the relatively few
customers--including a band of hip, neighborhood
skateboarders who occasionally shovel material
surreptitiously under the shirts and pants--Barry elects to
insult the squares. In the movie's most mirthful exchange,
Barry tells a middle-aged guy who wants to buy "I Just Called
to Say I Love You" where to get off with such sugary pap,
suggesting, "Do you even know your daughter?"
This lovely comedy never overstays its welcome, getting
blustery on only one occasion as Rob fantasies beating the
hell out of his lost love's current beau, Ian (Tim Robbins), an
unctuous, pony-tailed professional in the field of conflict
resolution whose ears are pierced and decorated with three
rings. As Rob's parade of lovers and near-liaisons, Frears
parades a group of attractive women such as Marie DeSalle
(Lisa Bonet), who delivers in the vocal department, and
Penny (Joelle Carter). Most refreshing of all is Rob's favorite,
the conflicted Laura, played by a woman known to
aficionados of foreign films for her role as a hooker in the
Danish movie "Mifune" of Soren Kragh-Jacobsen. The
relationship between Laura and Rob is not entirely resolved
by the story's conclusion, but we wish them the best.
(C) 2000 by Harvey Karten,
film_critic@compuserve.com
Copyright © 2000 Harvey Karten
out of 4
