High Fidelity
2000’s High Fidelity isn’t just a boy-meets-girl romantic comedy. It’s a love affair between boy and other boys, boy and his past, and most passionately, between boy and his record collection.
And while John Cusack’s protagonist Rob, ends up realizing it’s not what you like, but what you are like that matters, his journey of enlightenment showers us in nostalgia punctuated heavily by some fantastic musical choices.
The best scenes are set inside Championship Vinyl, owner Rob’s personal mecca for music snobs in downtown Chicago, where the socially outcast staff (grotesquely played by a young Jack Black, and tenderly played by Todd Lousio) steer their customers towards their own very specific sense of what constitutes musical taste, with hysterical results. The dynamic between the three of them is wonderful, and all too familiar to those of us who enjoy building our own collections.
Ultimately it’s a story about the important moments in life, and how the distraction of things too often gets in the way. But the romance of having an opinion on the best things in life never goes out of style.
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