Most rock ‘n’ roll movies are like superhero flicks. A guy or girl (or sometimes a group of guys and/or girls) goes from something to nothing, battles external forces and inner demons, and suffers crushing setbacks before triumphing in the end. Give Spider-Man a guitar, and he’s basically Johnny Cash.
High Fidelity is an entirely different type of story. Released 15 years ago this week, director Stephen Frears’ big-screen adaptation of Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel centers on the lowliest, least heroic characters in the rock ‘n’ roll universe: record-store clerks and their like-minded clientele.
They’re neither creators nor professional critics nor devoted fans who derive joy from following their favorite artists. They’re fickle, temperamental, obsessive collectors who define themselves by their tastes — which, in case you were wondering, are way better than yours.
High Fidelity is both a loving portrait and a cautionary tale, as main character Rob Gordon — played to lumpy, grumpy perfection by John Cusack — is a guy who knows tons about pop music and little about people. The film, like the novel, follows Rob as he reconnects with the women behind his All-Time Top 5 Breakups, a list he compiles after being dumped by Laura, the film’s female lead. Rob wants badly to find out why he’s destined to be alone, and along the way, he learns some valuable lessons.
And so do we. Ahead: The Top 5 Things We Learned from High Fidelity.
Update: Check out our full Oral History of High Fidelity, featuring interviews with Hornby, Cusack, Jack Black, and more.
1. Lists Make Life Better
In 2000, the Internet wasn’t quite what it is today, and the listicle had yet to emerge as the preeminent form of American journalism. Credit Rob and his Championship Vinyl underlings Barry (a brilliant Jack Black) and Dick (a terrifically awkward Todd Louiso) for being ahead of the curve. Rob and the “musical moron twins,” as he calls them, spend much of the film sharing inventories like the Top 5 Songs to Play on a Monday Morning, Top 5 Songs to Play at Your Funeral, and even the Top 5 Musical Crimes Perpetrated by Stevie Wonder in the ‘80s.
Lists are great because they (1) pass the time, (2) spark conversation, (3) encourage intellectual debate, and (4) force us to organize our thoughts and tidy up those junk drawers we call brains. What are the best songs about trees? The most essential Flying Nun releases? The least appropriate songs to play after your wife tells you she’s pregnant or having an affair? No matter how inane, every such question has five answers — or more if you’re running a website. While it can’t be “bullshit to state a preference,” as Rob says, some preferences are more valid than others. Fill your list with really smart and obscure picks, and (5) you’ll assert your knowledge and win the pop-culture dick-joust. List ‘em carefully.
2. Yeah, it’s what you like — but mostly, it’s what you’re like
At one point in the film, Rob shares a theory he’s devised with Dick and Barry: It’s what you like, not what you’re like. The idea is that our pop-culture tastes are more important than our personality traits, especially when it comes to friendship and romantic coupling. The film presents some evidence that this is true. Rob has a splendid night of expectation-free sex with Lisa Bonnet’s character, Marie De Salle, a musician who digs all the right bands and can even make Peter Fucking Frampton sound good. Rob and Marie connect on music and movies before they get to schtupping, but she’s also a nice person, so she doesn’t count.
Turning to Rob’s all-time top-five exes — the women he’s loved and who’ve loved him back — none seem to have particularly good taste in music or art. (Catherine Zeta Jones’ Charlie might be the exception, unless that rad Pretenders T-shirt she rocks post-coitus is Rob’s.) In the end, Rob finds happiness with Laura, an Art Garfunkel fan who never wants to see the same movies as him. She probably hasn’t even seen Evil Dead 2. “Books, records, films — these things matter,” Rob says. They do, but only to a point. Otherwise, he’d marry Dick and get it over with.
3. Reality > fantasy
One of Rob’s big takeaways from his deep dive into past relationships — particularly the one with Laura — is that he’s stuck on fantasies. The panties are always redder and silkier in the next girl’s apartment, and toward the end of the film, even after he and Laura have patched things up, he nearly falls for the pretty, young alt-weekly columnist who asks him to make a mixtape. She’s got cotton underwear and annoying habits, too, and if Rob leaves Laura, it’s not like he’ll be entering into some dream world of nonstop tantric sex and Pavement/Beefheart/Beta Band listening.
“Should I bolt every time I get that feeling in my gut when I meet someone new?” he asks himself. “Well, I’ve been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and frankly speaking, I’ve come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.”
He presumably learns his lesson, since the last mixtape we see him making is one for Laura. This is what constitutes emotional growth in Rob’s world, and even the great Stevie Wonder gets a reappraisal, as the tape includes “I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)”.
