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High Fidelity and the Unlikable Protagonist

John Cusack stars in High Fidelity. Touchstone Pictures. 2000.

The 2000 film adaptation of author Nick Hornby’s novel High Fidelity is an excellent examination of the inner workings of a cis white male in his early 30s at the turn of the century. Moved from its original British location in the novel to Chicago, the film is a very American look at a certain kind of American male. It appeals to some and not to others, yet it’s not the specificity that turns some viewers off. It’s the main character, Rob Gordon.

Rob is an interesting character, who, over the course of the film, learns to stop being so selfish. In all honesty, it’s not much deeper than that. Still, for me, High Fidelity manages the highwire act of telling a story with an unlikeable protagonist in the center. Rob narrates the film, breaks the fourth wall, is shitty to people, sucks up a lot of nonsense from those around him, goes out of his way to produce a record for two young men who tried to rob his record store earlier in the film, and is pretty tone-deaf regarding his past relationships. Again, Rob is interesting. But do I like him?

Well, let me address how he treats the women featured in his all-time top-five breakups list. First of all, the film recognizes that Rob is full of it. We see the reality of what happened, even as we hear what he has to say about things. For example, we have Penny Hardwick (played by Joelle Carter). According to Rob, Penny was nice but also a girl he could have sex with, based on what he’d heard. After he dumps her because she never gave it up, she goes out with another guy and has sex with him “after something like three dates.” To Rob, Penny rejected him. Penny didn’t want to have sex with him; she wanted to have sex with someone else. That’s not what happened.

We clearly see Penny hurt both by Rob’s constant moves on her and the way he dumps her. We don’t need to hear Penny’s side of it, but the film gives it to us anyway. In the middle of the film, Rob goes about contacting his exes in an attempt to figure out why they all supposedly rejected him. When it comes time for Penny’s turn, she lets him have it. Still, this is about mid-way through the film, so of course Rob doesn’t learn the right lesson from it. He accepts that he’s the one who rejected her, but he never comes to understand the hurt he caused her. I wonder, even after everything Rob goes through if he ever understands. Perhaps the end of the film is more of a beginning for Rob.

It’s tough with characters like Rob. On the one hand, they’re unlikeable, and I can understand why someone would not make it through the film because of his behavior. On the other hand, this is the kind of film that needs to begin with a character like this, where hopefully he ends up in a better place, which I believe he does.

John Cusack as Rob Gordon speaks to the camera in a close-up at the beginning of High Fidelity.
John Cusack stars in High Fidelity. Touchstone Pictures. 2000.

John Cusack is excellent as Rob Gordon. Right from the beginning, he gives the air of someone whose heart has been broken, which leads him to look back on his life and realize how much of an ass he is. As the story progresses, though, we get a much closer look at Rob which shows there’s more than meets the eye. I’m talking about the sequence where we find out all of the things that he did during his relationship with Laura (played by Danish actress Iben Hjejle who is insanely charismatic in the film).

Let’s list them off:

1) Rob cheated on Laura, while Laura was pregnant

2) Laura terminated her pregnancy because of it

3) Rob borrowed money from Laura and has yet to pay her back

4) Rob told her he was “sort of looking around for someone else”

Did he do or say these things? According to Rob, “Yes, I did. I am a fucking asshole.”

He then goes on to explain each one, and to be honest, given his point of view, I don’t necessarily forgive Rob for what he did but I can also see things differently. And that’s interesting because one of the themes of the film is point of view. For the most part, we follow Rob, but we also get info here and there from other characters which shapes all of them.

For instance, we have Penny and the two points of view regarding her breakup with Rob. Then there’s Laura, who had every right to leave Rob, but then we find out that she was seeing someone else while they were dating. (Tim Robbins gives a fantastic comedic performance as Laura’s rebound Ian, by the way.) Lili Taylor’s Sarah Kendrew dumped Rob for someone else, but we he meets her to find out why she rejected him, he realizes she’s in a bad place and leaves her be. It’s actually one of the decent things Rob does in the film.

Nobody in the film is perfect. It’s just that our intimacy with Rob, given his fourth-wall narration, allows us to see him more closely than everyone else. Again, it doesn’t excuse any of his behavior, but I do wonder what it would be like if we followed other characters so closely and honestly.

There’s a deleted scene that’s straight from the book that I think tries to make this point. It was smartly removed, though, because it’s far too general, and it makes Rob appear to be unremorseful. Following his confession to us that he did and said the things Laura said he did, he goes on to ask us, the audience, to write down the worst four things we’ve ever done to a partner. He asks that we not try to hide anything. He asks us, “Who’s the asshole now?” Well, Rob, not me. I’ve never done anything like what you did to a partner. Still, I do get the point of that.

Jack Black as Barry examines a vinyl record as John Cusack and Todd Louiso look on in High Fidelity.
Jack Black, Todd Louiso, and John Cusack star in High Fidelity. Touchstone Pictures. 2000.

High Fidelity isn’t about glorifying Rob, nor is it about condemning him. It’s about presenting a lead character as if, without dressing up the ugliness or lionizing the decency. Rob Gordon, oddly enough, is one of the aughts most real characters. All that said, though, is Rob “problematic?” Well, let me first try to figure out what that means.

The way I take it, a problematic character is a character who does immoral things and is romanticized for it. This can certainly mean misogynistic characters whose films either ignore the bad things they do or explain them away as character traits. The character is a genius, so any bad behavior on their part is excusable. It’s not, and I’ve always had issues with films with characters like this. I don’t see Rob Gordon as fitting into that mold, though.

High Fidelity celebrates Rob no more than Scarface celebrates Tony Montana. If you think you’re supposed to emulate their behaviors, you aren’t paying attention. Now, I can understand being frustrated or annoyed by Rob, but I also feel like that’s the point. Does he change much as the film comes to an end? No. He’s beginning to put the work in, and that’s a big step for him. It might seem small-scale to talk about making a mixtape as some life-changing event, but for someone like Rob, it is. Thinking about Laura and what she’d like is a good, solid first step. If we were supposed to be okay with Rob’s behavior throughout the film, we wouldn’t get an ending like this.

It’s also important to note that when the Hulu series of the same name debuted in 2020, Rob was recast as Robyn Brooks, played by Zoe Kravitz. Though black and female, she shares pretty much the same characteristics as Rob, and I always loved that choice. Rob doesn’t treat women very well, but High Fidelity isn’t about excusing that. It’s about showing how it’s wrong. When flipped, is the series about how badly Robyn treats men? No. At least, I don’t believe so. In both versions, though, the point of the main characters is just to show how some people treat other people. Both protagonists do mean things, and they can both be unlikeable. Neither the film nor the TV show romanticizes any of this.

So, what am I getting at? High Fidelity is a very funny and well-observed film about a specific person within a specific group of people circa 2000. When it was released, Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, declaring:

“In its unforced, whimsical, quirky, obsessive way, ‘High Fidelity’ is a comedy about real people in real lives.”

Exactly. Even though it is star-studded, the movie treats the characters as real people. Nothing over-the-top occurs, aside from moments inside Rob’s head, and it’s honest enough that even if viewers don’t see themselves in the characters, they’ve met people like them.

Rob Gordon is an unlikeable protagonist, but it’s such a truthful portrayal, and the film is such an entertaining watch. Of course, I don’t excuse what I’m watching, but to me, there’s a big difference between a reason and an excuse. A reason denotes understanding. I might not like Rob, but I understand him. The best characters are not the ones I relate to, but the ones I understand. High Fidelity is turning 25, and after all these years, it’s still an excellent film. The performances, the soundtrack, and the script all make this a classic. So, I don’t like Rob, but I wasn’t supposed to in the first place.

Written by Michael Suarez

I write and occasionally teach English classes. When I'm not doing either, I'm watching something awesome, reading something awesome, listening to something awesome, eating something awesome, or resting. Actually, not everything I do is awesome, but I'm okay with that. My loves include Lost, cinema from the '90s and aughts, U2, David Bowie, most of Star Wars, and - you know what? I love a lot of things. More things than I hate.

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