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High fidelity - John Cusack, Jack Black, Todd Louiso

Threat advisory: High - High risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

A comedy about fear of commitment, hating your job, falling in love and other pop favorites.

In a biting romantic comedy, Rob Gordon (John Cusack) is the owner of a semi-failing record store in Chicago, where he sells music the old-fashioned way - on vinyl. He's a self-professed music junkie who spends his days at Championship Vinyl with his two employees, Dick (Todd Louiso) and Barry (Jack Black). Although they have an encyclopaedic knowledge of pop music and are consumed with the music scene, it's of no help to Rob, whose needle skips the love groove when his long-time girlfriend, Laura (Iben Hjejle), walks out on him. As he examines his failed attempts at romance and happiness, the process finds him being dragged, kicking and screaming, into adulthood.

Theatrical propaganda posters

Target demographic movie keyword propaganda

Film drama comedy guy bloke man relationship record shop music

Persons of interest

John Cusack .... Rob Gordon
Iben Hjejle .... Laura
Todd Louiso .... Dick
Jack Black .... Barry
Lisa Bonet .... Marie DeSalle
Catherine Zeta-Jones .... Charlie Nicholson
Joan Cusack .... Liz
Tim Robbins .... Ian "Ray" Raymond
Chris Rehmann .... Vince
Ben Carr .... Justin
Lili Taylor .... Sarah Kendrew
Joelle Carter .... Penny Hardwick
Natasha Gregson Wagner .... Caroline Fortis
Shannon Stillo .... Alison Ashmore
Drake Bell .... Young Rob Gordon
Sara Gilbert .... Annaugh Moss
Chris Bauer .... Paul
KK Dodds .... Miranda
Duke Doyle .... Kevin Bannister
Jonathan Herrington .... Chris Thompson
Erik Gundersen .... Marco
Bruce Springsteen .... Himself
Alex Désert .... Louis
Nick Hornby .... Author
DV DeVincentis .... Screenwriter
Steve Pink .... Screenwriter
John Cusack .... Screenwriter
Scott Rosenberg .... Screenwriter
Stephen Frears .... Director

Cinematic intelligence sources

Studios and distributors:

Touchstone * Buena Vista International

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

Fidelity. Geddit? Fidelity?

Ok, I will explain it. Fidelity is the quality of being faithful, such as not committing adultery. In the film, Rob has committed adultery. He is unfaithful, he has low fidelity. Fidelity is also the accuracy with which an electronic system reproduces the sound or image of its input signal, such as a recording that sounds like you're there. In the film Rob sells records (big CDs with fewer tracks and more extraneous noise). The records reproduce sounds well. They have high fidelity. The title is a play on words, a pun.

Geddit?

If you don't get it yet, go and surf someone else's site because I am no longer friendly and I don't want you here. If you do get it... it's about time!

Now, on with the review.

This is one of those 90s-guy-angst flicks where some bloke gets to talk about his feelings without anyone slagging him off because he's a legend so it's all right for him to do it where an ordinary bloke would end up looking like a tosser. And it's not like he's talking about chick stuff, either, it's the stuff that blokes think about themselves but don't talk about because then they'd look like a tosser. Rob's legendary status comes from:

knowing everything there is to know about music,
having a record collection bigger than Spain (size does matter, and even if it didn't, it would),
owning his own music shop,
having had so many girlfriends that he can have an all-time top five list of chicks who hurt him the most when they dumped him,
he doesn't whine about being dumped, he wears his scars like the badges of honour which they are.

So, real Aussie blokes can go along and watch High fidelity without getting a lecture from their significant other about expressing their inner feelings more. They can also reminisce over some of the rockin' soundtrack.

Chicks will be able to convince themselves that this is a romantic film about a cute bloke who is hurt by the evil bitches who hurt him in the past and needs to get his girl back to save himself blah, blah, blah.

There's something in it for everyone.