High Fidelity 2000
I had high hopes for this one. I thought Grosse Pointe Blank was one of the best movies of 1998 and Being John Malkovich was one of the best of 1999. But instead this is more like a Reality Bites kind of movie. John Cusack is looking for why all his relationships fail. But it soon becomes obvious that the guy is just a jerk. To get inside his head, they had to resort to having Cusack address the camera. You can get away with this sometimes in small doses, but there’s too much of it here. Apparently the book was pretty good, but books can go inside a character’s head and movies just can’t. So for most of the movie it seems like Cusack is just raging and venting to the audience about his own problems. Big acting. Not real entertaining.
The movie saves itself towards the end but it still doesn’t justify the means. There are some good small parts by the guys that work at his record store. Catherine Zeta Jones plays a very good-looking ex-girlfriend but she doesn’t pull the role off well. Lisa Bonet shows up briefly and seems adequate and Tim Robbins has a funny minor role as well.
I wonder sometimes if John Cusack doesn’t just make movies so that he can employ all of his friends (and of course his sister, Joan). He’s kind of a victim of his own success: if he wasn’t so good nobody would fund these projects of his.
Disappointing. I give it a C+.
Written: 17 Dec 2000