High Fidelity
Year: 2000
Director: Stephen Frears
Screenplay: D.V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink, Jhon Cusack and Scott Rosenberg (from the novel by Nick Hornby)
First of all (I hate starting with this phrase) I want to say I didn’t know this was based on a book, so obviously, I haven’t read it. I imagine the book is written in the first person because Rob – the main character – is constantly talking to us (to he camera), telling us his feelings, what’s happening, etc.
High Fidelity is a movie about relationships and our search for the perfect relationship, the perfect person, about expectations, fantasies, heartbreaks and all the sh*t load of things we go through our lives along with other people. Rob is the center of this story, a guy in his early thirties who’s trying to figure out why in the world does he always end up being dumped by his girlfriends. He owns a records’ store and likes to make “top 5 lists” of everything, from music – which is his passion – to girls, more specifically, breakups. With his two employees, they makes a trio of music geeks.
I’ll try to be brief for a change. He decides to meet with his previous girlfriends to find out the reason why they left him. 5 girls, and he gets different conclusions along the way. In the meantime he meets another woman, a singer, which is an amazing thing for him, but neither he or she are ready for a commitment, so it’s a short thing – a one night stand basically. It’s not even that much of a deal: in the scene where they are saying goodbye in the morning, as soon as she turns around, he starts talking about his “real” problems: her most recent breakup.
Besides the awesome cast and soundtrack, the movie itself got my attention the first time i saw it, not only because of these factors, but also because I relate to those people, we all do I guess, in some way or another. In my opinion, the world turns around money and love, nothing more, nothing less. The root of all issues are one of those two things, or both. But that would make another post… We see how Rob relates to those different girls and how he evolves and gets to his conclusions, being the final one the decision to propose to his now-reunited-girlfriend, although she doesn’t even want to marry and he knows it. His decision resumes the movie I think: as he explains, he’s tired of the fantasies, of running away at the most little “problem” (in fact, this isn’t just his problem… we all have our little flaws and his no-girlfriend did it as well), of messing things up because of other girls, even if it’s just a temporary thing, a meaningless thing. So he decides to propose, to end all that and have some stability with a woman he truly loves and likes to be with.
So yeah, it’s a pretty long movie but you can see it without even yawning or checking if it’s almost over. I liked everything about this one, from the picture to the music, the story – it has many references of things I like, plus: that’s how I found Stiff Little Fingers – the cast… I don’t know how to categorize it, though: I wouldn’t call it a drama, for me drama = tears. And I didn’t cry or felt like it. It has some funny things, but it’s not a comedy. It’s not a love story either I guess, it’s more a breakups’ story… I don’t know, it mixes all of the above, and music. Good music.
Movie Generation 