Review of High Fidelity (2000) by Andrew P — 03 Dec 2009

This is my favorite Cusack film, and one of the better book-to-film adaptations that I have seen. This story is a scathing look at the male psyche. Rob is weird, he is desperate, he is kind of a dick a lot of the time, he mopes through having been broken up with. Basically, there is more Rob in every guy than we would ever openly admit. Jack Black plays his zaney little self the whole time that he's on screen, but he's reigned in enough by his character that there isn't really enough room for him to go overboard. Sonic Death Monkey might be the greatest band name ever, by the way.

The one glaring problem in the film that everyone brings up, and I have to agree with is Lauren Hjejle. I did, however read a brilliant solution to this problem. Switch the casting of Hjejle and Bonet. Bam. Problem solved. Bonet's character is minor enough that Hjejle could have pulled it off effortlessly, and Bonet could have carried off the conflict and weight of Laura much better.

One of my favorite scenes in the film is the one in which Ian comes to the record store and talks to Rob about the situation with Laura. (Rob hangs out outside Laura's apartment, though. That's something that guys should never be able to relate to. That's just restraining order behavior right there.) All of a sudden, you see several scenarios that play out in Rob's head. The greatest is when they drop the air conditioner on Ian's head. After several play out, Rob is just sitting there, and sheepishly mumbles something. There's not a man out there who hasn't had those sort of scenarios run through his head about an ex's new guy, or some of the old ones. I don't care how much of a pacifist you are, sometimes you just wish unspeakable things on the men either currently or previously in your girlfriend's life.

After Hjejle, the other pet peeve to be made with the film is the final story about the writer that interview's Rob. It may have worked well in the book, but it was completely unnecessary in the film. It just breaks the flow of the film, and the path toward's Rob's redemption.

So, this is probably Cusack's greatest film, and if there are any women out there that want to know exactly what some of the dark things that run through men's heads that we never tell you, just check this film out.