Viking Night: High Fidelity
By Bruce Hall
February 7, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The best thing about both of these films is Cusack, who is one of the few actors of his generation who could credibly play a love struck teenager with a diseased mind and make him seem sympathetic instead of creepy. This is The Cusack's bread and butter, and he does it so well that his fans are willing to endure things like Serendipity and Hot Tub Time Machine because to them, the man is like a brother. So why then, out of all those movies, would I pick High Fidelity to discuss? After all, if we're going to talk cult classics, Better off Dead is a no brainer, isn't it?
True - but few films are a greater test of Cusack's mutant ability to make almost any character likeable. Really, the guy could play Hitler and you'd still kind of want to give him a hug. And High Fidelity has him again turning to his old standby, the sympathetic, lovelorn sad sack who just can't seem to get a break from life. Only this time he's well into his 30s and it's a lot harder to feel sorry for him, for reasons that will become apparent in just....one...moment.
The film opens at the home of Rob Gordon (Cusack), who is in the midst of begging his incredibly exotic looking girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjejle - say that ten times fast) not to walk out on him. He fails, because she's got that look on her face that women do when mentally, they've checked out about six months ago. They've been patient, they've dropped hints, laid down bread crumbs, passed up better men and even ignored the desperate advice of their very best friends for you. And now, she's had enough.
After she's gone, it's kind of easy to see why. Rob is a man who sits around stewing in self doubt, brooding over and muttering about the many failures in his past, particularly the ones that involved other women. This, of course, makes him dour and sullen to the woman he's currently with and naturally drives her away. It seems Rob can come up with more details about his ex girlfriends than his current one - and we all know how girls like to share a relationship with ghosts.
So, Rob turns to the camera and begins to recount for us the five worst breakups of his life. This is a cinematic device; usually, when a character addresses the camera this means they're not talking to us so much as they're talking to themselves, or mulling an issue over incessantly in their own mind. Had the film not resorted to this convention, it would have been necessary to literally show Rob walking around in circles muttering to himself and pulling his hair out in clumps, which - I'm guessing - would make him a lot harder to like.
In fact, I don't have to guess. I KNOW people like that, and when you see them coming, you cross the street. And the fact that Rob has his Top Five breakups mentally catalogued in such Ted Bundian detail would make Rob a very scary man, were he not played by John Cusack. In fact, change up the lighting a little and add Jodie Foster as an intrepid FBI agent hot on his heels, and you've got a very different movie. And once Rob starts in on his Heartbreak Hit Parade you're really not sure whether to laugh, or put your arms around yourself, involuntarily shivering with mortal fear. Five minutes in, and you're already kind of on Laura's side.
This is because we discover, as we turn the pages of Rob's tortured romantic past, that he's kind of an immature, self absorbed prick who keeps pulling fish out of the pond but throwing them back because when it comes to relationships, catching them is the easy part. Giving them a reason to stay is the tricky stuff, and if you're starting your fourth decade on earth still pining over the girl who jilted you in seventh grade, that's not gonna be an easy thing to pull off.
But at least Rob is a small business owner, so there's room for hope, right? Maybe. What he owns is a record store (Kids: it's like iTunes, except it's not run by Nazis and you can touch the music). Part of the reason is because a true narcissist could never work for anyone but himself. The other is that Rob also a music snob. And like most music snobs he lacks the ability to process emotional states in an adult way, so he relies on the artistic ability of complete strangers to add meaning to his life.
Yeah. I said that.
But at least he's not looking for meaning alone. Rob employs a couple of guys who, in their own way, have the same problem. They think having an opinion is a skill - especially when it comes to being overly critical of people who make music for a living instead of just collecting it. But Barry (Jack Black, when his shtick was still fresh) and Dick (Todd Louiso) are his best friends, and like most guys with rocky pasts and questionable futures, they stick together like badly cooked rice.
Things come to a head as Rob discovers that not only has his girlfriend moved out, but has traded him in! It's a hard thing to see your ex again, once you know they've replaced you. It's sort of like talking to a cop. You should trust them but you don't, because behind that vaguely disinterested expression, you just know they're secretly cataloguing everything you say in order to destroy you with it later. But if you're inclined to feel badly for Rob at this point - and you'd be hard pressed to, because he's really an incredible twit - that changes when we discover the real reason he and Laura didn't work out.
Up to this point, like the sins of Dorian Gray, Rob's transgressions are pretty much left to the imagination. But when we discover what truly drove the couple apart, the film changes tone. It becomes a confessional, and you forget about the Fourth Wall. Rob isn't muttering to himself, or to the camera. He's talking to YOU. He's your pal. He's a little messed up but he's got a lot of regrets, a surprising amount of heart, and far more self awareness than we've been led to believe up to this point. Maybe he's NOT going to spend the whole movie wallowing in self pity.
Maybe he's going to take stock of himself and grow up?
Uh....no. Rob has an epiphany all right, but what does he decide to do about it? He decides to check in with all Five of his exes, and ask them straight up what went wrong.
Yes, you heard me. Rob takes the important and very adult step of trying to do just that. Just...in the creepiest way possible. He starts tracking them all down, one by one, to ASK them why things didn't work out. And they all more or less buy into it because it's a movie, which is the only place in the universe these kinds of things can happen. And remember, we're talking about John Cusack, who's made a career out of turning "creepy" into "sweetly misguided." It's a good thing, because if Brad Pitt were playing this part the movie would have ended with him in the electric chair, laughing his ass off as he sizzles like a piece of bacon and his eyeballs dribble down his cheeks.
Instead, we accept it, even though Rob's Mea Culpa World Tour only accentuates his massive narcissism. But our deepest personal problems are the ones we have to come to terms with on our own. We have to carry our own burdens, and find our own answers. And right when it seems as though High Fidelity is seriously trying to address that, the entire story goes off the rails. It unravels like a cheap sweater, and at the end you're left with a bunch of loose ends that only feels like an ending because you're told that it is.
Unfortunately, High Fidelity isn't a movie about people, or feelings, or redemption. This is a Greek tragicomedy set at the twilight of the 20th century, with Tenacious D and the Tainted Ramblings of Rob Gordon's Mind as the chorus. It's filled with Three's Company style dramatic malapropisms, characters who serve no clear purpose (Lisa Bonet shows up for some reason, makes you want to stab yourself in the face and then vanishes) and story divergences that never come back together so much as they dissolve like Kool Aid and end up part of the solution by default.
Does this film want to be a romantic comedy, a Gen X slacker treatise on settling down and sorting your life out, or an irreverent testosterone romp about bros and hos? Who can say - at any given time it is all of these things. I'm pretty sure what High Fidelity is trying to tell us is that when your biggest concern in life is having nobody to share it with, it's easy to forget to LIVE your life - thus ensuring that that every time you do meet someone, the only things you have to share are angst and bitterness.
If, at any time, John Cusack had simply turned to the camera and said THAT, it all would have made a lot more sense.