Generation Undecided
FILM: High Fidelity
DIRECTOR: Stephen Frears
STARRING: John Cusack, Lili Taylor
GRADE: A-
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RECORD STORY OWNER ROB GORDON (JOHN CUSACK) IS MORE COMFORTABLE WITH HIS VINYL THAN HIS MANY RELATIONSHIPS IN HIGH FIDELITY.
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The 1930s were a decade of grinding desperation, the '40s a time of war,
deprivation and sacrifice. The 1950s were an era of unexpected prosperity and
limiting conformity, the '60s a fleeting passage of experimentation and
rebellion. The 1970s were mushy around the edges, a period of self-indulgence
and drift. Reagan-era greed marked the 1980s.
And then came the 1990s, an age without definition. The stock
market exploded. Material comfort reached new peaks, and a generation came of
age wondering what it was all about. Rejecting the push of the '80s, young
people graduated from college and moved back in with their parents. AIDS was
old hat, and sex was so frankly open that it lost some of its mystery. Young
people delayed their careers and were slower to marry. Co-habitation was no big
deal, but commitment was hard. And that's the immediate legacy of today's 20-
and 30-somethings as we move across a millennium into a new decade. That legacy
is the focus of Stephen Frears' fresh and insightful new comedy, High
Fidelity.
Written by D.V. Devincentis, Steve Pink, Scott Rosenberg and John
Cusack, High Fidelity is the story of Rob Gordon (Cusack), a disheveled,
30-ish college dropout with plenty of brains and not much sense. Without a
notion of purpose and with even less focus, Rob has drifted into the ownership
of a used record store, where he and a couple of other music geeks flaunt their
encyclopedic knowledge of popular music and treat their customers on a scale
that ranges from indifference to hostility.
Rob's professional stasis is mirrored in his romantic life. He's
had a series of girlfriends, but none of his relationships has worked. When he
can summon the energy to examine himself, he doesn't much like what he sees.
Thus, he's Woody Allen's Alvy Singer a quarter-century later. Any girl willing
to get involved with him is one he can't help but suspect is beneath his
enduring affections. Most recently, that's Laura (Iben Hjejle), a former
legal-aid lawyer now turned corporate attorney. Rob is too phlegmatic to break
up with Laura, but he's not above cheating on her. Worse, he's not above
creating an atmosphere of romantic ennui that eventually results in her leaving
him.
He has no right to be, but Rob nonetheless is surprised and wounded
when Laura leaves, and he begins to examine his long history of romantic
failure, trying to figure out why his relationships always end unhappily. The
results of his inquiry aren't particularly profound, but they are frequently
quite funny. In short, Rob is so fundamentally insecure and resolutely
neglectful, his girlfriends (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lili Taylor and
Lisa Bonet) are inevitably either bored or disappointed or both. He was overtly
swinish to his high school girlfriend, Penny (Joelle Carter), because she
wouldn't put out. But the others tended to dump him because his low energy led
them to find more excitement elsewhere. Ultimately, Rob understands he has to
give in order to get.
High Fidelity overworks the soaking rains in which Rob
always seems to find himself, and it never really produces a belly laugh. But
the picture is well acted by its large and capable cast. The undecided
generation stands at the precipice, the picture gently suggests. Men like Rob
need to make their stand in both their professional and private lives.
Woody Allen's Andrew character from his A Midsummer
Night's Sex Comedy defines marriage as "the death of hope." And that's the
very attitude Rob has to conquer. It isn't easy, though, for Rob or anyone
else, and to drive that point home, just as High Fidelity seems to weave
itself an uncomplicated resolution, in prances Caroline (Natasha Gregson
Wagner), a music columnist. Is she perhaps finally the girl of Rob's dreams?
Or, like all the others, is she merely a dream when barely known? This picture
is smart enough to grasp the hard (but hardly unpleasant) work that enduring
relationships require.
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