Oh, High Fidelity

Is High Fidelity just The Graduate only not very similar at all?

I think I may be on to something here. No, I don't have to reference those films, or the original novels (Hornby and Webb, respectively) or even italicise the motherfuckers, because this piece of writing is not marked. Except by the internet people, and they give everything a Damien. That's right - nil pwah cherie!

Wrap your peeping gear around this slice of entertainment gateaux, the last scene of High Fidelity:



There he goes, snapping his headphones onto his manchild-typecasted ears with a knowing look. Well, you don't know Mr Cusack/Gordon/Flemming! You don't know the half of it, love!

This is what I mean by similar to The Graduate. The way I see it is that the ending of High Fidelity can be read in two ways:

1. Happy Ending

2. Rob basically sells out and decides being boring is easier than being unhappy.

Proof for the second point. Right - remember in the film where Jack Black refuses to sell Stevie Wonder 'I Just Called To Say I Love You' to a customer because it's "sentimental tacky crap"? Rob agrees, yet at the end of the film there he goes blasting away the shit out of sentimental Stevie. And yeah, I do like that song, but I find it an inappropriate yet funky choice for this point in the film.

I think it's probably somewhere in between. Let's consider this scene:



... in which Rob is a bit of an idiot. But that's not the point. The point is she understands what he's saying and isn't angry at him for expressing it in a fucking stupid way.

So I've swung between liking the ending and hating it, and deciding that they're both boring but then thinking actually, are they boring...? Because Stevie Wonder is pretty cool, really. Her fringe is distractingly wonky, and he's a grumpy old perv. But really, does talking all this practical rhubarb about being tired really go hand in hand with 'I believe when I fall in love with you it will be forever'? Not really. Maybe 'I believe when I fall in love with you we have a one in three chance of divorce'. That would make a lot more sense, but I don't think Stevie Wonder did that song.