***Thoroughly Modern…-John Cusack’s High Fidelity –A Film Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

DVD Review

High Fidelity, starring John Cusack, Jack Black, 2000

Modern age issues can be very trying things, very trying indeed. Oh no, not the questions of war and peace, the degradation of the planet, the struggle against the three great tragedies of life-hungers, death, and sex but, well wait a minute let me back up, because we do want to deal with that last issue in the film under review, High Fidelity, Yes, we want to deal with the very modern issue of, uh, boy and girl relationships, a staple of the Hollywood production line. But in a little different way because instead of the person who is suffering youthful angst and alienation being a young woman that is the usual vehicle for introducing this subject we have a guy, played John Cusack, who is unman-like, if there is such a word, spilling his guts out (sorry) about his lifelong trial and tribulations with, uh, boy-girl relationships. Stuff that most guys keep deep within their psyches but which in the modern confessional age is open for public inspection. The way this introspection is dealt with in the film is by a verbal dairy of sorts with Brother Cusack giving us a blow by blow description of his personal wars going back, going back to middle school for chrissakes. I had better give the skinny of the plotline so you know what I mean.

Take one confused record store owner specializing in rarer and hard to get oldies but goodies and one public service lawyer who are having, well, having trouble in their relationship, and are ready to split up and go their separate ways. Reason, public service lawyer reason, one sad sack record store owner is not “growing.” (By the way for those who are young, who live in mall country, or who satisfy their musical tastes by down-loading their selections on every conceivable electronic gadget a record store is a place where you go in and buy records. You know, vinyl, 45s, 78s. Still don’t get it, then look it up on Wikipedia please.) The film revolves around the hard fact that Brother Cusack has always been, or thinks that he has always been, a loser in the boy-girl love wars and he takes us back through his stormy relationships (to him but to us we have seen and heard that song before) going back to middle school for chrissakes (oops, I already said that). So we are treated to a trip down memory lane (aided by many, many songs from various periods as background-kudos for that) through the litany. Of course when the deal goes down, this is after all a Hollywood boy-girl story, he sees where he could be a little less shallow, a little more open, and so he is redeemed in the end. Gets the girl, again.

Well, okay it is not the stuff of great tragedy, modern or ancient, and his character flaws do not doom him to the depths of hell but that main story line is not what makes this one so entertaining. What does is the interplay between Cusack and his employees at the record store, mainly one mad man Jack Black. Now a lot of what Jack Black does is frankly sophomoric and sometimes it seems like he has only one note to play but every time he was on-screen he redeemed this thing. Made me laugh despite myself. Not bad, huh. Makes you want to go out and buy records (see note above for the clueless on this word). Enough said.