Every time I go through a breakup, I’m compelled to rewatch the noughties classic High Fidelity, in which OG softboi John Cusack mournfully chronicles a “top 10 list” of his all-time worst breakups, soundtracked by the albums that accompanied them.
Rather than his parade of enthralling exes, including a wonderfully vapid Catherine Zeta-Jones, it’s Cusack’s record shop, Championship Vinyl, that’s the film’s star. A sanctuary for a hurting Cusack, this battered boutique becomes a refuge for Chicago’s other lost souls, giving its perennially hungover proprietor and a gaggle of local music nerds a place to lick their wounds.
