HIGH FIDELITY

HIGH FIDELITY

Directed by Stephen Frears. Starring John Cusack, Iben Hjelje, Jack Black, Todd Louiso, Lisa Bonet, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Tim Robbins)

A winner from the off, this one, as Nick Hornby's source novel gets transplanted from north London to Chicago without losing any of its magic. Hollywood reworkings of cred novels generally tend to err on the side of crowd-pleasing populism, but the Grosse Pointe Blank team were never likely to sabotage the book's spirit, and High Fidelity strikes all the right notes: sentimental but never schmaltzy, piercing but savagely funny, and bursting with warmth, it's almost a feelgood flick in spite of itself.

Angst-ridden, music-obsessed, just-been-jilted everyman Rob (Cusack) divides his time between anguished contemplation of his romantic agonies ('Which came first, the music or the misery?') and spiritually rewarding labours in a low-rent record store named Championship Vinyl. His mates-cum-employees, dweebish Dick (Louiso) and loudmouth Barry (Black) are sad trainspotterish 'alternative' freaks prone to unleashing tirades on customers who dare to ask for the wrong records - Rob would probably sack them, but they never expect to be paid.

The store is witness to a number of hilarious asides on anything from Green Day to Stevie Wonder, but its main function is as a backdrop to the chaos of Rob's rapidly-atrophying love life: girlfriend Laura (Mifune's Iben Hjelje in a knockout performance) has recently walked out on him.

Cusack, meanwhile, is an absolute gem: it's doubtful whether any combination of words could convey just how good an actor he's become. Much of the movie's duration consists of him confiding directly to camera, and the result is a flick that sucks you straight in and leaves no room for take-it-or-leave-it ambivalence - it's funny, knowing, cutting, sometimes sad, sometimes kinda blue, never mean-spirited, fizzling and crackling with the kind of love for life that's rarely if ever seen on screen these days. If you can sit through High Fidelity without smiling, you're probably dead. A serious film of the year contender.