Plot
The film centers on Rob Gordon (John Cusack), a self-confessed music geek whose flair for understanding women is over par for the course. After getting dumped by his current girlfriend, Laura (Iben Hjejle), he decides to look up some of his old flames in an attempt to figure out what he keeps doing wrong in his relationships.
He spends his days at his record store, Championship Vinyl, where he holds court over the customers that drift through. Helping Rob in his task of musical elitism are Dick (Todd Louiso) and Barry (Jack Black), the "musical moron twins," as he refers to them. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of all things musical, they compile "top five" lists for every conceivable occasion, openly mock the ignorance of their customers, and, every so often, sell a few records.
Rob and the staff have a strong dislike for two shoplifting skateboarder teenagers, Vince (Chris Rehmann) and Justin (Ben Carr). One day, he listens to a recording that they did (actually "The Inside Game" by Royal Trux) and offers them a record deal, starting his own label called "Top 5 Records". During his off hours, he pines for his lost girlfriend Laura and does his best to win her back.
Rob soon hears that Laura's father, who liked Rob, has died, and attends his funeral with Laura. Shortly after the reception, Rob realizes he never committed to Laura and always had one foot out the door. This made him realize he neglected his own future in the process. Afterwards, he and Laura move back in together again, and she organizes a celebration of the recently released single by the two delinquents, where Barry's band plays "Let's Get It On" and is delightful (to everyone's surprise). In the final scene, Rob finishes his advice about making the perfect mixtape, and says that he is now making one for Laura.
Read more about this topic: High Fidelity (film)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
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