Hulu remakes ‘High Fidelity’ for new generation
CHICAGO — As an actor, working the camera — addressing us directly, in a confidential key — only looks easy. Phoebe Waller-Bridge in “Fleabag”: a genius, deadpan one second, fantastically expressive the next. John Cusack in the 2000 film version of the Nick Hornby novel “High Fidelity”: also a direct-address genius.
Cusack, who worked on the adaptation of Hornby’s 1995 London-set novel, managed a tricky, bittersweet portrait of a misbegotten musical romantic, reassessing his past breakups to take his mind off his latest one.
Now, a generation after the Cusack version, we have the streaming reboot of “High Fidelity” starring Zoe Kravitz, who also served as an executive producer of the 10-episode Hulu series premiering Friday.
I’ve seen five of the 10 episodes, and they’re really good. The series recasts the “High Fidelity” central character’s gender, and relocates the story from Chicago (and/or London) to a fresh, clean, light-filled vision of Brooklyn, N.Y. Kravitz’s mellow wizardry in the straight-to-the-camera narration does the trick. Improbably, the character of Rob (here short for Robin) feels like a fresh investigation of a cliche. The women in Hulu’s “High Fidelity” don’t feel like male fantasy figures. The women and men here constitute a droll array of sharp-witted personalities when it comes to what they love, yet foolish or hesitant or dopey on whom they love.
Rob’s shop is still called Championship Vinyl (“NO CDs,” a sign says). As with the 2000 movie, this store has next to no customers, if only because the opinions expressed by the staff leave no breathing room for any other humans.
Hulu’s “High Fidelity” costars the fabulous Da’Vine Joy Randolph, of “Dolemite Is My Name”; as aspiring musician Charise, she plays the corollary to the earlier version’s Jack Black role. The other staffer is Simon (David H. Holmes, equally strong in deadpan mode), who works at Championship full-time for the hell of it. A friend of Rob’s from his closeted days, Simon’s now out and, like Rob, looking for love in various wrong and right places.
The general shape of this “High Fidelity” — created by Veronica West and Sarah Kucserka, who worked on “Chicago Fire” and “Ugly Betty” — remains pretty faithful to the movie and the novel. As Rob despairs over what went wrong with the presumptive love of her life, played by Kingsley BenAdir, she sets out to confront her key exes and learn more about why things went sour. Jake Lacy, ever-valuable, portrays Clyde, a clean-cut Colorado arrival who pops in and out of Rob’s affections.
It’s easy to see why “High Fidelity” appeals, always, to music obsessives and fledgling critics. At heart it’s all about winding the strands of your thoughts, your tastes and your relationships together so they can actually support a whole life, not just a series of lists. Kravitz is precisely what this version needed. (Her mother, Lisa Bonet, appeared as the musician lover of Cusack’s character in the 2000 film.) She’s deceptively chill, with absolutely zero impulse to oversell the jokes.
The material’s updates and byplay are often very funny (i.e., a staff debate about the ethics of selling Michael Jackson records). In episode four, Rob and Clyde pay a visit to a rich woman to buy her stunning record collection. Parker Posey is priceless as the soon-to-be-divorcee; when she and Kravitz share a scene, it’s like peculiar comic timing heaven.
In many ways this new “High Fidelity” exceeds the previous version. Kravitz provides both the anchor and the ballast. I like how Rob, as handled by Kravitz, finesses the heartbreak in between the lines of the Top 5 lists.
In short, reasons why the first few episodes work: 1. Kravitz, whose presence is both cutting-edge and warmly analog. 2. Debbie Harry in for the Bruce Springsteen cameo role from the 2000 version. 3. Rethinking Rob from the ground up, or thereabouts, shakes that remake-just-because-we-could feeling. 4. Recognizing that nattering, emotionally guarded pop culture obsessives aren’t confined to one place on the Kinsey spectrum, or one type of nattered, emotionally guarded pop-culture obsessive. (One of Rob’s exes is female.) And 5. Rob’s line, after a painfully funny meeting with a patronizing vinyl freak at the Carlyle hotel bar: “That was like being a woman in a Michael Bay movie.”
Season 1 of “High Fidelity” streams on Hulu starting Friday.