Review of High Fidelity (2000) by Erik R — 12 Jan 2014

I had this movie on top of my dresser for like two weeks. If you want to know the truth, I was afraid to watch it. I was afraid that it wouldn't be good. I was afraid I would put it in and I would sit through it and think something like, "Yeah that was mediocre. It was decent. It was OK. But it didn't touch me. It didn't connect." And I hate that. I hate not feeling something.

If you want to know the truth, I'm also afraid to go to bed because I'm afraid I won't actually fall asleep and I'll just lie there staring at the ceiling with an over-active brain, imagining all sorts of wonderful ways I could be living my life but am not.

What's that got to do with the movie, you say? Well that's what the movie is about, innit? It's a romantic comedy about a guy who learns to love what's beside him rather than what's in front of him.

Wait. No. That doesn't make sense. The whole issue is that he never thinks about the future, that he's too afraid to commit. Because if you commit and you fail, well... And by the end, he starts to see the future, to think about it, talk about it.

But then what was that whole deal about him looking at other women and thinking too highly of them? That they were just fantasies? Isn't the future just a fantasy that we try to make real?

Well whatever. Point is, I liked this movie. It was honest. It didn't have all of this bullshit that a lot of movies have. Like Titanic. I've never seen Titanic and let me tell you why. In 1997 when it came out, I was 12 years old, and my mom had taken me and my friend to see STARSHIP TROOPERS. Or maybe it was Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Don't judge me. Well, my mom and her friend went to see Titanic, and I walked into it right near the end just as some stupid old woman dropped a giant diamond into the ocean. Don't gimme that romantic blah blah blah nonsense. You know what's romantic? Cuddling on a wooly carpet in front of a roaring fire is romantic. Drive-in theaters playing Evil Dead 2 is romantic. Listening to a 1980s classics mix-tape and sharing an ice cream float is romantic. Dropping a giant diamond into the ocean is depressing.

High Fidelity was depressing too. If you've ever been in a bad break-up, it's almost impossible to watch without those old feelings of anxiety bubbling up from where you've imprisoned them. But y'know it's a good kind of depressing. And I don't think I care to explain what that even means.

Final Say: Great movie, especially if you like John Cusack. Which you should. You do right?

How to Watch It: With a significant other! And afterward you can do something romantic. Like have sex. On a woolly carpet near a small bonfire at a drive-in movie theater playing Evil Dead 2 while drinking an ice-cream float with one straw! Aww!

Trivia: I saw Alan Greenspan on the list of credits. Huh? What? The Alan Greenspan? The ex-Chairman of the Federal Reserve? That would be awesome... but I think they are different people. Alas.