Southern Ontario has never been known for great weather and barring a ‘day after tomorrow’ shift in weather, it never will be. The winters, damp and cold. The summers, humid and muggy. This phenomenon is unusually noticeable in Waterloo, the standout nominee for the “Armpit of Southern Ontario” award. It may be that the sheer ugliness of the city reinforces the ugliness in the weather. Either way, I’ve come to believe that Waterloo is privy to some meteorological voodoo that damns it to the windiest and dampest winters. Having lived there for 5 memorable years and hating cold weather, I would never go home in between classes as to avoid the weather. In my final winter term in waterloo I filled one such morning-to-afternoon class gap with a sub-par breakfast at a sub-par price Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Luckily, the obviously generic food was greatly improved by coffee and the conversational zeal of my friend Middleton. A man, caught in the body of a boy giant, who knows his pop culture and generally all things written (I would imagine this would be the case if you were pursuing a masters in Icelandic literature). Middleton and I, for the most part, agreed on movies. But for some reason we violently disagreed on one specific movie… High Fidelity. I asked him once for a “Fav movies of all time” and that John-Cusack-sack-of-crap was his #1. How, I thought, could two people with such similar taste in movies have such a different opinion on that crap-pile of a movie? As it turned out, we didn’t. I was just an idiot.

Skip ahead two years to a lazy afternoon where I can’t find the energy to complain with a friend’s rental choice of About a Boy. To my surprise, it was actually quite enjoyable and got me thinking about how I might have misjudged the screen adaptations of Mr. Hornby…

But I had so many complaints about High Fidelity. John Cusack plays a whiny insecure unsympathetic character who talks to the screen for half the movie. Could they honestly not think of a better way to deliver the story? And this guy should be dumped by Iben Hjejle. Not only can she pull off the short-bangs look but she’s just so damn cool with that hidden danish accent trying to sneak out from behind her faux-american voice. And what was with all the crappy music they were listening to? And come on, Lisa Bonet? How could I possibly enjoy a movie that I remember hating on so many levels? On top of this, my hatred for John Cusack had been finely honed after reading and re-reading the first chapter of Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs.

But whenever I meet dynamic, nonretarded Americans, I notice that they all seem to share a single unifying characteristic: the inability to experience the kind of mind-blowing, transcendent romantic relationship they perceive to be a normal part of living. And someone needs to take the fall for this. So instead of blaming no one for this (which is kind of cowardly) or blaming everyone (which is kind of meaningless), I’m going to blame John Cusack.

But one Sunday afternoon I found myself lovesick, tormented the night before by a girl that even Mike Doughty couldn’t find lyrics to describe, and I just wanted to sit and watch a possibly-funny preferably-upbeat movie about love and loss. I slowly perused the main shelves of Queen Video and came across the dvd with its stupid ass cover (On a side note, isn’t it wonderful how Queen Video randomly rotates old classics in with the new releases?). I figured, at worst, my lovesick thoughts would disappear behind a newly rekindled hatred for High Fidelity. But somehow I found myself absolutely in love.

This time around, I only had to watch the movie for 2 minutes before pausing it to stop and think “I absolutely love this movie”. How? How could this possibly have happened? First off, High Fidelity is essentially about two things: love & music. And between the April 2000 release of the film and my September 2004 rental my views on these very two things had changed in drastic measure. The guy who saw High Fidelity in the theatre was a 19-year-old 2pac fanatic who had no breakups to recount and was still with his first real girlfriend. The fellow who rented it is a semi-professional music nerd who listens to a lot of iron & wine and has been involved in a few trainwreck dating finales.

After I thought about it, this complete reversal made sense. It would be more shocking if my opinion of the movie didn’t change. Hell, I remember being 8 years old and really enjoying “Police Acadmy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach”. I’m sure if I watched it today, I would see it for the gi-normous pile of horse crap that it is since I am no longer 8-years-old and long past are the days were I appreciated the acting abilities of Steve Guttenberg.

But in the first two minutes of the movie I recognized two things:

1. I now understood all the pop music references. Right off the bat, the first poster you see in the apartment is for a Ladybug Transistor and Of Montreal concert. Two somewhat obscure bands both of whom I listen to. All of a sudden, Rob Gordon and I have a rapport, a merd understanding. A guy with that much taste can’t be a complete jackass? He must just be misunderstood right?

2. For some reason Rob talking to the camera doesn’t seem to bother me nearly as much now. Then it dawned on my why he has to talk to the camera. How else could you explain the neurosis of a vinyl junkie with low self-confidence on film? 18 hours of examples detailing how crazy in the head that he is? No. Incredibly long voice-overs which would get lost in the filler shots they’re voicing over? No. Point blank, he has to talk to the camera.

But beyond a technical revelation and a new found pop music comradery there was something that struck me about the honesty in the film. It wasn’t the usual “this is the honest truth” stuff. Instead, the movie was chalk full of simple honest moments where the characters speak plainly about baggage, desires, and most of all, love. These topics aren’t new or uncommon to movies but rarely have I seen them discussed in such a pragmatic and honest way.

Right off the bat, we hear Rob scream out his window “If you wanted to mess me up, you should have got to me sooner”. Who amongst us does this not describe? From time to time, we all forget about the baggage we carry. It seems Rob doesn’t, he’s the first to admit it and the entire movie is basically about him detailing it. Rob’s baggage is somewhat debilitating. He clearly has some deep wounds on his psyche. But later in the movie Marie makes a subtle point after Rob asks her about her ex…

Ya [I miss him]. that’s how it works right? I think it’s ok to feel horny and fucked up at the same time. Why should we be denied our basic human rights just cause we messed up our relationships?

We’re all a little fucked up, we all have our baggage, but conflicting emotions don’t have to debilitating. They are just part of who we are. Dealing with the past doesn’t have to include fucking up what’s in the present (including casual sex, as in Marie’s case). Love is rarely black-and-white, it’s just another thing we usually have to sort through.

In “Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs”, Klosterman’s contention was that John Cusack was to blame for why he’d never truly be in love. His argument was that every woman in his dating range was sold on the idea that “mind-blowing, transcendent romantic relationships” are a normal part of living and they’ve been hooked on this version of “true love” ever since they saw Say Anything back in 1989. Since then, these women have been perpetually lost in an attempt to find the all-consuming love which Lloyd Dobler (played by Cusack) had for Diane Court. If this is the case, and these are Mr. Cusack’s sins against western society, then High Fidelity must have been his atonement. For in it, we see a very different view of love and life. We see a group of hardened music snobs melt at the idea of dating a musician. These romantic hopes are somewhat idealistic but are still a far cry from expecting Helen of Troy. There is no intense and all-consuming love here; no ghetto blasters playing Peter Gabriel from the mountain tops; just a normal guy being honest with who he is…

Rob: I’m just sick of thinking about it all the time… Love and settling down and marriage, you know? I want to think about something else… That other girl, or other women, whatever. I mean, I was thinking that they’re just fantasies. You know? And they always seem really great because there’s never any problems. And if there are, they’re cute problems like, you know, we bought each other the same Christmas present or she wants to go see a movie that I’ve already seen, you know? And then I come home, and you and I have real problems and you don’t even want to see the movie I want to see, period… I’m tired of the fantasy because it doesn’t really exist. And there are never any surprises, and it never really…

Laura: Delivers?

Rob: Delivers. Right. And I’m tired of it. I’m tired of everything else, for that matter. But I don’t ever seem to get tired of you.

The movie ends with Rob making a mixtape for Laura, one that she would love. Something profound to him but in no way dramatic. This leads me to a very different thought: Maybe it’s not the honesty I relate to but the sell of “lazy romance”. Maybe I’m just hoping I can keep a great girl with no need for the dramatic, merely the occasional thoughtful mixtape. You could argue that in 10 years someone will be writing about how they have to thank John Cusack for the simple and pleasant love life they find themselves in. But I think a much better bet would be that in 10 years there will be countless women writing about why they now hate John Cusack. Hate him for creating a generation of men who lack all sense of romance and want nothing but High Fidelity “true love”.