High Fidelity [Blu-ray]

Either the world is getting weirder or I'm finally starting to recede toward normality, as High Fidelity actually plays at a level I can relate to. Now, there's no shortage of films like this - man enters 30s and has to finally grow up, doesn't have a clue about love or life, and tries to figure everything out and get his girl back in the process. Surprisingly, most of these films are pretty good. High Fidelity is excellent. It has a compelling, human, believable story, lots of comedy (much of it high-brow disguised as common), a great cast, and all kinds of great music that could really be described as a passable soundtrack to life itself.

John Cusack plays Rob Gordon, a pretty normal guy who happens to be living in an emotional bubble - and it has just burst. His girlfriend of the past two years, Laura (Iben Hjejle) has just left him, triggering a sort of early midlife crisis in his life. Rob doesn't like change. He runs a record shop with the help of two guys even weirder than he is - Dick (Todd Louiso), a shy, bumbling, Moby-like guy and Barry (Jack Black), who never fails to entertain. The guys like to expound upon their musical knowledge, usually in the form of top five lists of everything. Rob has top five lists for everything, including his most traumatic breakups. He tries to pretend that his recent breakup with Laura isn't top five material, although it obviously is - especially when he learns she seems to have left him for Ian (Tim Robbins), the schmaltzy pseudo-loverboy upstairs. He simply must know why Laura dumped him, and that sends him down memory lane thinking about all of the other girls that dumped him through the years - going all the way back to junior high. Seeing some of these women again, including a beautiful yet shallow ex-flame played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, he gets a whole new perspective on life. Not completely, though, as he's still tearing his heart out over Laura and engaging in some activities that could be construed as harassing in nature.

For an ex-couple, he and Laura seem to stay in touch a great deal, as she's always coming over to get more of her stuff, calling him on the phone, etc. (For his part, Rob also spends an inordinate amount of time out in the pouring rain.) As time passes, Rob comes to evaluate his real feelings for Laura, even as he hopes to somehow get her back, and comes to know himself a lot better in the process. He never really figures things out, nor does he truly reinvent himself, but he matures. He's going to be OK - no matter how things work out with Laura in the end.

Basically, this is a romantic comedy for guys. For once, guys won't have to sleep through a sappy love story their better halves force them to watch; Rob is sort of speaking for guys as a whole here. There's plenty of dry, witty humor to keep you sustained, much of it supplied by Jack Black, and you might even find yourself wanting to watch the whole film over again. Plus, it features not one but two Bob Dylan tracks, so you know it must have something going for it.

This is a movie about men, their possessions and how they order them. For Rob, it's all about pop music and women. Nothing else, besides the odd film, matters to him. And it's pretty much the same for his two male colleagues at the record shop, who exist at opposite ends of the forcefulness spectrum. They form a self-selected elite who look down on the musical taste of nearly everyone they meet.

But actually their hyper-critical views are pretty close to the mark. It's great to hear someone else noticing and lamenting the 1980s decline of Stevie Wonder, for example. One might criticise author Hornby for selecting Rob's dream job as record producer in the punk era (1976-79) when he could have chosen, say, late 1960s Beach Boys / Beatles psychedelia. But you can never find someone with the identical taste as your own. Strangely, the music is not particularly central to this movie, in the sense that it probably generated fewer album sales for featured artists like Marvin Gaye than say 'The Big Chill'.

The structure of the movie takes a little getting used to. The first time you see it can be a disappointment -- there's no upbeat climactic ending, unless you count the improbable, rather obviously tacked-on, disco/concert by Sonic Death Metal, or whatever they happened to be called at the time. John Cusack's frequent chats to camera seem altogether natural (except when he's sauntering backwards and forwards on some wooden bridge-cum-platform in downtown Chicago).

What I like about this film is that, from a male viewpoint, it rings true so often. Men do behave treacherously, and the behaviour often looks worse at first sight. I like the fact that the actress who played Laura wasn't stunningly attractive. Even Lisa Bonet didn't seem particularly beautiful in the movie. (But yes, that really is Catherine Zeta-Jones discreetly stripping off in a role just before she became famous enough to warrant a major Hollywood film credit.)

This is not the perfect movie, but it contains a message about the male psyche that I hadn't extracted from any other movie, and that revelation in itself is sufficiently uplifting to distract from the artificial attempt by the film to uplift via the back-together-again concert/disco scenario.

Ah yes. Another quirky offbeat romantic comedy from quirky offbeat romantic cynic John Cusack. Life sucks but he wouldn't miss it for the world. Give John Cusack credit. He was 34 when he made this. His character is a guy in his late 20's who has the emotional maturity of a teenager and Cusack pulls it off effortlessly. Cusack's character, Rob, isn't a jerk. He's a manchild. He doesn't mean to be a selfish obsessive boob; he just lacks the normal range of human adult emotions. Imagine the teenager Cusack played in Better Off Dead. Now imagine that teenager ten years later and working as the owner of a independent music store. He's a music snob and puts in long hours at the store but he still has time to ruin promising relationships with childish antics, talk to the screen and stalk former girlfriends while chasing after the next soon to be ex girlfriend. High Fidelty is the unofficial sequel to Better Off Dead. Instead of weird parents and goofy fantasy sequences, we get weird coworkers and morbid sexually and violently charged fantasy sequences involving Tim Robbins. I won't compliment the soundtrack except to say any movie about music had better have a damn good soundtrack and High Fidelity does its job.