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| HIGH FIDELITY Stephen Fears, Director Buena Vista/New Crime Mystery, Why So High on High Fidelity? I found myself laughing a lot as I watched High Fidelity, but it wasn't a good kind of laughter. There was nobody I could enjoy and the laughter had a sneer in it. "Critics" (to generalize) are raving about this film: "The first great movie of the century." "5 Reasons You Should See High Fidelity." Sitting in the theater I asked myself in bewilderment, "Why?" John Cusack's character Rob Gordon always manages to snatch the worst motive out of even his best actions. Jack Black is completely unbelievable; no one this awful would infiltrate so far into society as to work in a store. The one-noted Todd Louiso character is so frail he's a caricature. Sure, I smiled a lot just listening to the sound track. Sure, Jack Black's character is loads of laughs. Sure, Rob Gordon's self-serving mental gymnastics are clever. Sure, the ending is satisfying. But most of the movie shows people in such an unpleasant light, how can any one rave about it? Then I got around to watching my tape of Cusack's Letterman interview and the mystery was solved. Letterman added his raves to the chorus (permanently injuring his credibility by his relief that this was not one of the many times he had to plug a movie that was "a dog"). Repeatedly, Letterman and Cusack both said *men* can recognize themselves in this movie. "Men recognize themselves" is the key to the reviewer raves. This is a man movie. Women, see High Fidelity if: 1) you're vengeful and love to see men skewered, 2) you're music-loving and that out-weighs anything else, or 3) you're lucky and you've never suffered from men behaving this way. If you want a movie to make you feel happy, or if you want to feel good about your fellow human beings, this is not the treasure the publicity would have you believe. Joy Calderwood |
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| HIGH FIDELITY Stephen Fears, Director Buena Vista/New Crime High Fidelity: The Last Honest Burger? A question for serious John Cusack fans: what if Diane had dumped Lloyd Dobbler, never shared his vision of their connection, never consented to be his first love/lover, and gone off to England by herself? Or what if Lloyd had been just a trifle less self-aware and a trifle more sexist? The answer, for this fan, is that he might have gone on to a series of shallow relationships, never being able to make a commitment because he didn't really know what he wanted. He could very easily ended up Rob Gordon, the main character of High Fidelity. The great thing about Lloyd Dobbler was that he was the perfect fantasy in my high school days. A self-possessed, handsome boy-man who had the luck to find his soul-mate while still baggage-less and a virgin. Fantasy. The great thing about the characters in High Fidelity, now that I have a full travel set of baggage and have long said good bye to any semblance of virginity, is that they are real people. The spontaneous laughter at the horrible circumstances Rob drags himself and everyone else he knows through is the honest laughter of self-realization. Who hasn't tried to make themselves seem the better person in a fight. In life, as in the film, no one is innocent. We've all run over someone else's heart in the rush toward the elusive "perfect love." It is this methodical journey that Rob takes through the course of the story towards realizing that there is no perfect love, that there is only the love you strive to perfect every day, that makes High Fidelity such good film. It is a film about growth and choice. By good film, I don't mean Lawrence of Arabia. I mean a film that, in the tradition of stories told round the fire, teaches us about ourselves and others, and in the end teaches us to forgive and celebrate the multi faceted state of humanity. In this case our ability to love each other unconditionally and drag each other over hot coals with the same naivete. Rob is not malicious, he is just a slow learner. (That, of course, doesn't make him any less dangerous to the women he crosses.) High Fidelity is not a feel good film in the Disney sense, but I did leave the theatre feeling a little kinder towards all those men who couldn't be Lloyd Dobbler for me, and that did feel good. Carlye Archibeque |
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