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High Fidelity

Reviewed by Chad Armbruster

High Fidelity is John Cusack's latest big screen creation that will make men realize "Hey, we're all thinking the same thing!" And, will let women find out just what it is that men are really thinking. The film was originally plucked from the novel of the same name by Nick Hornby, originally written in 1995 and set in a record shop in London. But, by the grace of a small budget the movie takes place in downtown Chicago. In this touching Gen X style movie John plays burned out record storeowner, Rob Gordon. Who in the aftermath of a sudden break up with his not so long time girlfriend, Laura, speaks to the audience and tells us just how and why life seems to work as it does. Then, begins to list off his top five all time break ups and what went wrong. This is the first of many top five lists that are littered throughout the film. After coming up with a first draft of break ups Rob is convinced that he and Laura's is not even worthy of being listed in the top five.

It seems as though this movie is an example the new 30-ish mental break down/ mid-life crisis. Constantly throughout the move Rob refers back to a time in his life when he was considered hip and trendy. Yes, I know that having these kinds of epiphanal moments are not a new resource for the movie community. However, Cusack presents all of these grand illusions about life in a very Empire Records meets Clerks fashion that is very entertaining to those of us who have had the same dark thoughts about past relationships and why we did what we did to make them go wrong. The all star cast in this film really is impres-sive. With cameos by the likes of Tim Robbins, Bruce Springstein, and Catherine Zeta-Jones it's no wonder this film is doing so well at the box office.

Over all it's a movie, for those of you males, who ever wanted to take your thoughts on relationships and broadcast them to the world. Fear not ladies there is a true love story hiding in the plot line somewhere.