What really matters is what you like: “High Fidelity” at 25 | Features

When we go back to the expressive and bruised romantic of John Cusack, Rob Gordon, in “High Fidelity” a quarter of a century after the release of the film, there is no doubt that Rob was often a petulant and immature narcissist who filtered almost all the lives that it meant for him. Sometimes it seemed that it would shock Rob to learn that his actions and the words have consequences – that he is responsible for the state of his own life.

There are times when we are amazed, even foul, by the self -absorbed reaction of Rob to the revelations of old friends, for example, the Penny of Joelle Carter puts him straight on the trauma she experienced after their breakup – and Rob making her pain. What makes “High Fidelity” a sustainable chicago classic despite – which always makes him poignant, funny and perceptive – is that the adaptation led by Stephen Frears of the novel by Nick Hornby in 1995 frequently recognizes Rob’s faults. Cusack permeates him a raw vulnerability, a spark of humanity and just enough growth to make him move the needle to Rob being sympathetic. Somewhere just north of the age of 30, surrounding himself in protective layers of vinyl and cassette hipsterism, he at least tries to embark on a self -discovery trip. As Rob offers us a farewell when Stevie Wonder “I think (when I fall in love, it will be forever)” infiltrates the closing credits, we hope the best for Rob.

Even if we doubt its walking relationship and deactivation with Laura from Iben Hjelje will last.

Like Hornby’s memories No fever“High Fidelity” was completely British in his sensitivity, but Frears and the scriptwriting team (which included Cusack) did a spectacular work to conservation the spirit of the book while transferring the place to Chicago. (The Americanized 2005 version of “Fever Pitch”, passing the football sport in baseball and with the current Talk -show animators Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore, rings almost as a parody – but it works in fact. Brooklyn -set, Hulu series with gender switching in 2020 – but the 2000 feature film remains the final adaptation.

Revarding “high fidelity”, we are struck by the way he serves as a chicago temporal capsule, the millennial turning point, mainly the Wicker Park district in all its bohemian glory, alt-rock, Thrift-Store, mid-referral. Even when the locations extend to Lakeview, Lincoln Park and River North, each framework of “high fidelity” is faithful at the time. We believe that these characters live in these spaces. We emerge from Chicago Touchstones (some still here, some parties), including the double door, the Green Mill show, the music box Theater, Hi Ricky Asia Noodle Shop & Satay Bar and Lounge Ax. The director of Irish photography Seamus McGarvey was going to offer magnificent and sometimes breathtaking visuals in Joe Wright’s films “Apiment” and “Anna Karenina”, not to mention “The Avengers”, but her work here is just as impressive, in a lower key. The chicago that we see here is grainy, lived, real. “High Fidelity” occupies the same universe as “the day of leave of Ferris Bueller”, but the images are worlds.

Leaving the biograph Theater, Cusack as Rob tells us: “John Dillinger was killed behind this theater in a hail of gunshots. Do you know who made them switch them? His girlfriend F *****. It’s dark. And funny. Cusack is naturally natural to break the fourth wall; He has almost as many lines with “We” as with any character in film. Rob carries his psyche on his sleeve, that he reflects on the reason why he is as he is-“Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable, or was it miserable because I listened to pop music?” Me? “It is a well -calibrated work enclosed in the physicity of trouble.

In an underestimated performance, Iben Hjelje shines as Laura, a corporate lawyer who has exceeded her days of pink hair and apparently exceeded Rob, but who has his own current of instability. After Laura left Rob, Rob embarks on his “desert island, all times, the first five, the most memorable, in chronological order”, and maintains to revisit each of these women in her past. Throughout this trip, “High Fidelity” reminds us of the latest generation before smartphones and social media, a period of fixed lines and responders, telephone directory and indoor smoking, mixing bands and desperate calls of telephone kiosks soaked in rain. (Rob is forever taken in the floods. You might think that Chicago was in Colombia or Papua-Nouvelle-Guinée.)

The employees and friends of Rob’s Record Store, the Manic Barry (an electric Black Jack) and the Dickment Dick (Todd Louiso, expertly playing the most kind soul in the world of Rob) provide a sort of Greek geek choir with a rob emotional mountains of Rob; Championship vinyl is one of the few places in the world where these two unsuitables can be intimidators of pop culture, or at least have the impression of belonging. Meanwhile, Cusack creates one of his romantic and intense and often obsessive characters the most memorable, alongside the Lloyd Dobler Lloyd Boombox in 1989, “Say Oldything” of 1989. (Martin in “Big Point Blank”, Jonathan in “Serendipity” and Jake in “Must Love Dogs” could complete a “list of the first five of Stalker On the limit of John Cusack “.) It is not an easy task for Cusack to attract us in so many characters who could be more abrasive than to attach, it was not for his inherent and regular handling.

Of course, songs are a huge component of history; This is about as close as a film can be a musical without being one, with drops of needle ranging from “You Gonna Miss Me” by the 13th floor to elevators to “Robbin’s Nest” from Illinois Jacquet to “I’m Gonna Love You, Babe” by Bruce Spring, by Barry White. “”

During my recent revisits, I also kicked family ties that prevail in the casting, one of which would not appear for two decades later. John’s sister Joan Cusack is an explosion of comic energy as a sister of judgment (rightly) of Rob, Liz. Their father, Dick Cusack, is the Minister of Funeral of Laura’s father. John and Joan’s sister, Susie Cusack, appears to be guest at the Charlie dinner. (UGH, this whole group is unbearable.) Margaret Travolta, sister of John, plays Rob’s mother. Natasha Gregson Wagner (Daughter of the producer Richard Gregson and Natalie Wood and daughter-in-law of Robert Wagner) embodies the attractive musical columnist Caroline Forts, which briefly captures the interests of Rob. Lisa Bonet is a relaxed stage thief as a sensual singer Marie de Salle, who has a brief meeting with Rob but sees through him. (Twenty years later, Bonet’s daughter, Zoë Kravitz, would play the owner of the record store in Crown Heights, Robyn “Rob” Brooks in the Hulu series.)

A 2010 article in Chicago The magazine has placed “High Fidelity” at the top of its list of the best Chicago films of all time. I am not quite there. With competitors such as “Mickey One”, “Cooley High”, “Thief”, “Risky Business”, “The Untouchables”, “The Blues Brothers”, “The Fugitive”, “Barbershop” and “The Dark Knight”. I would not put it in my personal top 5, but if we extend this list to 10 or 12, “High Fidelity” is definitely graphics.