One quote I try to remember when times are difficult is from the late Pope Benedict XVI that says, “The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort.  You were made for greatness!”  Put differently, God did not bring us into the world to only experience ease.  Life brings us trials.  When we cling to God, those tribulations are more manageable. Please note that I am not saying “easier,” but you can manage difficulty by inviting Him into your life.  Without God, we are Rob Gordon (John Cusack) in High Fidelity (2000).  I can empathize with what you are going to read about because I have gone through my share of breakups, a specific kind of hardship.  Nonetheless, I cannot condone his behavior as he describes his experiences to us.

We meet Rob at the beginning of High Fidelity at the end of his relationship with Laura (Iben Hjejle).  He is listening to music, which makes some sense since he is the owner of a Chicago record store, while she is packing her things to leave.  With an angry goodbye, he turns to us and begins reminiscing about past girlfriends and how they parted company.  In fact, he has a top five list of these occurrences, and get ready for a lot of such accounting.  Because what has taken place with Laura is still fresh, he does not want to include her.  Instead, he goes back to when he was in middle school (Drake Bell) and begins reminiscing in chronological order, hoping to see some pattern as to why this keeps happening to him.  They need not all be enumerated, but by the end of it, it becomes apparent that he has not treated members of the opposite sex well.  Interspersed with these flashbacks are scenes of his store, with his two employees, Dick (Todd Louiso) and Barry Judd (Jack Black); conversations with Liz (Joan Cusack), Rob and Laura’ mutual friend; and attempts at winning back Laura.  In talking to Liz, Rob learns that Laura has moved in Ian “Ray” Raymond (Tim Robbins), who used to live upstairs from Laura and Rob.  Laura’s actions cause Rob to do two things.  First, he moves her into the top five.  After talking to her, asking whether she has slept with Ray, and being told no, Rob goes out and has sex with Marie DeSalle (Lisa Bonet), a local musician he heard play live.  Do you see why this Catholic is not keen on him or this movie?  Unsurprisingly, doing so does not make him feel any better, and it gets worse when Laura later confirms that she has made love to Ray.  All this leads to the second reaction, and that is to get in contact with the previous four women on the list, going in the same order.  The first is married.  The second, a girl he dumped in high school because she would not have sex with him, remains angry with him after he brings up the past.  He skips over the fourth for a moment to reunite with Sarah Kendrew (Lili Taylor), a person he had dated when both of them were lonely after breakups.  In the middle of their relationship, she suddenly announced she had met someone else, and left.  She is just as unsettled as before and Rob quietly departs.  Shortly thereafter, Laura returns to get the last of her stuff, but finds notes had made of the top five jobs he would like to do if time and money were no object.  Though most of them are impossible fantasies, the fact that one of them is an architect, or that he wrote them down at all, is impressive to her.  Before taking her things, she admits that there is a slim chance they could get back together.  The next day, number three, Charlie Nicholson (Catherine Zeta-Jones), finally returns his phone call.  Rob is excited about the opportunity to see her again, but lies when she asks if him contacting her is part of some soul searching on his part.  Even though she basically throws him out of her place when he finally admits the truth, he comes to feel that she is shallower than he remembered.  It also serves as a way of getting him to make some goals for himself.  The first is spur of the moment.  One morning while opening the shop, he overhears Barry and Dick listening to a tape made by Justin (Ben Carr) and Vince (Chris Rehmann), two skateboarding teenagers that often loiter outside.  Seizing an opportunity, Rob goes outside and offers to promote their record for a share of the proceeds.  Next, Rob gets a call from Laura informing him that her father died.  Because her parents had always liked him, he is invited to the funeral.  Following the wake, they drive to a secluded place and have what amounts to makeup sex.  In other words, they are back together and things are going fine until she comes up with the idea of having a release party for Justin and Vince’s album, and letting Barry’s band play at it.  In addition to being nervous about it, he is interviewed by a music columnist, Caroline Fortis (Natasha Gregson Wagner).  There is commonality between them, and he catches himself making a mixtape for her because he is developing a crush on her.  In agonizing over Caroline, he finally comes to the realization we have been waiting for: his problem is that he has never been able to commit.  Rob discusses this revelation with Laura, admitting that he had been living in a fantasy and that he is tired of it.  Further, he asks her to marry him.  She does not say yes, but she is appreciative of being asked.  From there, the release party is successful and we conclude with him making a mixtape for Laura to express how much he loves her.

The fact that Rob has such deep feelings for Laura belies the title, High Fidelity.  Literally speaking, it means a great deal of faithfulness to one person.  In this sense, I guess the title is meant to be ironic?  However it is supposed to be taken, it is clear from the start that he does not have the level of commitment needed for a proper relationship.  From a more modern point of view, commitment does not seem to be a virtue.  In movies especially, the imperatives of physical intimacy and marriage are sadly confused.  Yet, he does land on the proper point of view.  Whether you are talking about a relationship with God or another person, there needs to be some sense that you are fully into it.  Since this is a Catholic film review blog, I will focus on the former of those positions.  Christians are called to place God first in anything they do.  From Him flows all other blessings, in the real and spiritual worlds.  The fact that followers of Christ order their world in such a way might seem esoteric.  How can somebody who supposedly cannot be seen with our eyes be the one to determine how we handle our interactions with others.  It is found in His teachings.  When Jesus is asked which is the greatest commandment, Jesus responds in Matthew 22:37-39 with, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment.  The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  The common theme here is love.  There is nothing in here about sex.  Granted, it is also not specific about pre-marital relations, or a whole host of other things.  There is the rest of the Bible and Faith tradition for the minutiae.  But it starts with God.  Rob cannot know this, not only because the script says so, but because the film makes him out to be selfish.  I applaud him for coming to understand that a good relationship is about the other, I just do not appreciate what he goes through to arrive at this conclusion.

So, yes, High Fidelity is about relationships, though I wish they could be presented in a better format.  The fact that it is set in Chicago is nice for me, but as somebody who is pro-life, I am not thrilled by the fact that Laura got an abortion, though this revelation is passed over quickly.  It all adds up to a sort of icky film that I think you could be better off not seeing.