The first record store attendant I had a relationship with was this guy at the Music Den behind the Steinback's mini-mall in Manalapan, New Jersey. His name was Will. I was young, 7th grade or so, and I was buying a cassette of "True Stories" by Talking Heads and "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd. Will told me that the most wild stuff from both of those bands wouldn't be found anywhere in the store. He told me that if I came back in a couple of days he'd give me a tape with David Byrne and Brian Eno's "My Life In The Bush of Ghosts" on side one and Roger Waters' "Music From the Body" on side two. It involved a couple of weeks, what with me having no car, and Will never seeming to be there the next time I showed up, but I eventually got that tape. And you know what? I now recognize that it was that gift from Will, a Trojan horse of sorts, that made me the music snob I am today.

U.K. director Stephen Frears' latest film High Fidelity is one of the truest adaptations of a novel I can recall. The screenplay by lead actor John Cusack, his two high school buddies (Steven Pink and D.V. DeVincentis, the same ones who worked on Grosse Point Blank) and the always-working Scott Rosenberg, is very faithful to Nick Hornby's oft-discussed and lent out slim novel. This is both a blessing and a curse. I can safely say that this Frears' film is one of the few on that fabled list, "better than the book." But given the source material, it isn't that rough to surpass it.

Which is not to say that High Fidelity is not incredibly enjoyable. It succeeds on very many real levels, one being that it is fond of, and seeking the approval of, its characters. And I applaud the film for not toning down the book's obsessive esoterica. The movie opens to the 13th Floor Elevators' "You're Gonna Miss Me," quickly hangs a character's introduction on how he quavers at the phrase "Belle and Sebastian," and just gets better from there. There are in-jokes on Dylan, The Clash, Zappa, the Minutemen, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, you name it. It's enough to make you forget there isn't much of a story going on.

Oh, sure, there is some story going on. Rob, played by Cusack, breaks up with a girl. He uses it as an excuse to reflect, via direct address, on his previous relationships. And he's a music snob, owning a store for music snobs, working with two other music snobs, both played with frightening realism by Jack Black and Todd Louiso. This is basically Play It Again, Sam with the Velvet Underground and Nico replacing Rick and Ilsa. Though not nearly as memorable.

But there are some painfully true moments onscreen, and I don't just mean Rob's decision to take a Friday night and reorganize his record collection not by alphabet, or by order of release, but by chronological introduction into his life. Rob may be anal, but he's sentimentally anal.

Rob tries to meet up with all of his old loves in order to save the last one--a device so hackneyed even the film's characters roll their eyes and ask, you're not doing that are you? His past loves, since romanticized in his instant replay mind, all turn out to be, well, a little flawed. Among them, Lili Taylor plays a needy, meds-takin' mess. Catherine Zeta-Jones (a woman, mind you, so deserving of my physical affection that each night I weep for her loss. Ms. Zeta-Jones and her shapely perfection, by the way, should be offered up as Exhibit A in any libelous suit put forth by God against one F. Neitzche as full-on evidence that he is not indeed dead) rubs Rob the wrong way after all these years for being what he always admired in her: ultra-sophisticated. Though, frankly, how damned sophisticated can her character be--the film takes place in Chicago for God's sake!

The film works to the extent that it does because Cusack is the perfect center for this partiular form of dysfunction. Forgive me for repeating what's on everyone's list, but watching Rob up there on the big screen is damned near close to checking in on our old friend Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything. Cusack does this sort of thing very well. High Fidelity is chock full of Cusack monologues, many of them including the book's celebrated "top 5 lists." There's no other actor in Cusack's league who could pull this sort of thing off. Ben Stiller's too ironic, Edward Norton's too airy . . . maybe Campbell Scott, but I think I'm the only one left who expects Campbell Scott to become a movie star.

The rest of the cast is top notch, too. Stephen Frears is fast becoming one of the best directors of low-key, ensemble comedies. Consider The Van and The Snapper, a far cry from Dangerous Liasons and Prick Up Your Ears. Tim Robbins does what he can in a dumb, cartoon-like role. Natasha Gregson Wagner, Sara Gilbert and Lisa Bonet have about four lines between all of them, but they express their ridiculous male-perceived stereotypes quite well, and with humor. The main squeeze is played by some dame with a crazy Scandinavian name. I didn't find her all that attractive (and, thus, thought Rob was a fool to miss her so much) but she gives an understated performance that is appreciated. This is a guy's movie: we don't need to hear any of that nonsensical feminine shrieking.

So it's a mixed review. If you are a music snob, go see it to see yourself on the big screen. You'll dig the Frampton references, and the slam at Stevie Wonder for once being so cool, only to suck so horribly now. Otherwise, go to consider the ample talents of Cusack and the assorted cast as they make a save at what could have been a bad film given that, you know, it really isn't about anything all that original.