Two: The women he gets involved with.
All six play specific parts in the film, and each does a great job. Despite the
slightly misogynist lean to the early rantings of the film, the women hold their
own in the biased flashbacks that our narrator presents us with each adding
minute details that make the film that much more memorable. My favorite
was Marie DeSalle, Lisa Bonet's Frampton-singing rock musician who sleeps
with Rob. When she meets Rob on her couch the next morning, she asks if he
misses his ex, and he asks if she misses hers. She says that she does, but that
they [she and Rob] shouldn't miss out on their "basic human rights"-sex-just
because they screwed up their relationships.
Three: The Record Store Geeks.
The film takes place in a record store and is stocked with characters who are,
as some might dub them, music snobs. When someone says "this is good,"
referring to the music being played, Rob invariably answers, "I know." His
two 'employees' are Dick and Barry. Dick is a quiet, small man with a meek
voice and a willingness to back down. Barry, on the other hand, swears at
customers and is shocked when they want to buy records that anyone with any
taste would hate. For example, when a man comes into the record store to
request "I just called to say I love you," Barry refuses to sell it to the man,
saying, "there's no way your daughter would like that. Oh! I'm sorry," he
adds, "is she in a coma?"
Four: The film's brash use of convention.
High Fidelity uses a lot of face-to-the-camera narration.
Like Malcolm in the Middle, it can be a bit jarring. At the
same time, it jostles narrative, dancing back and forth in time and using its
first person narrative more cleverly than Malcolm ever has (although the
latter is getting better). The film also boldly and unashamedly makes use
of several other film conventions, like the hallucination-revenge (ala
True Lies) and the plethora of trains to mark the locale as
Chicago. My favorite, however, was the film's blatant use of rain as an
indicator of sadness. While this is something that many films use once or
twice, High Fidelity makes Chicago look like Seattle, drenching
our downtrodden Rob several times. Yet, the heavy-handedness doesn't
harm the narrative. Perhaps it's because the narrative seems to be laughing
at itself. How do you fault a film that's tongue-in-cheek?
Five: The top 5 lists.
Every now and again, you see something cool in a film that the people in
that world do and you wish your life were that cool. Of course, we all have
these things, but the ones in films are more interesting. Tom Cruise exchanges
idioms with the magazine stand guy in A Few Good Men; Paul
Newman and Robert Redford touch their noses in The Sting; the
music snobs in this film have their top five lists. In homage to them, the above
was mine.