Love, Vinyl and Top-Five Heartbreaks: An Evening with John Cusack and High Fidelity

By Joanie Cox Henry

Dust off your vinyl and rank your exes. John Cusack is coming to town. [Photo By Greg Williams]

Before a playlist could be sent in seconds, romantic longing required a little manual labor. You chose the songs. You considered their order. You worried that the lyrics might reveal too much or, worse, that the recipient would miss the point entirely. A mixtape was a declaration with plausible deniability. Hey, you could always insist you just liked the band.

High Fidelity understood the emotional stakes of that transaction. It also understood the man who could spend hours selecting the perfect song while remaining spectacularly confused about the woman he wanted to hear it.

On Wednesday, November 18, John Cusack comes to Wells Hall at The Parker in Fort Lauderdale for An Evening with John Cusack with Screening of High Fidelity, part of the Baptist Health Red Carpet Series. Beginning at 7:30 p.m., the event pairs the 2000 film with a live conversation afterward, giving audiences an opportunity to revisit one of Cusack’s defining performances before hearing from the actor himself.

There is something particularly appealing about that sequence: first the fictional man explaining himself, then the actor who made those explanations so entertaining.

Directed by Stephen Frears and adapted from Nick Hornby’s novel, High Fidelity follows Rob Gordon, a Chicago record-store owner whose breakup with his girlfriend, Laura, sends him rummaging through his romantic history. His business is struggling; his emotional bookkeeping is worse. Music supplies both his organizing principle and his favorite hiding place.

Cusack makes Rob compelling without sanding away his vanity. Here is a man whose taste has become so central to his identity that disagreement can feel like a personal injury. He can hear the distinction between a good record and a great one. Hearing what another person needs from him proves considerably more difficult. That imbalance gives the film its bite. Rob’s musical fluency is seductive, funny and occasionally exhausting. His opinions arrive with the confidence of settled law, even when his account of his own behavior could use a vigorous cross-examination. Cusack allows us to enjoy his character's company while recognizing the considerable work involved in loving him.

The performance earned Cusack a Golden Globe nomination in 2001. Revisiting the film in 2026 adds another layer. We now have seemingly endless ways to display our taste, assemble our influences and turn private feeling into something publicly consumable. Rob would have plenty of tools at his disposal. Whether any of them would improve his relationships is another question.

For music lovers, that recognition can be uncomfortably close to home. Most of us have assigned a song more meaning than its writer could possibly have intended. We have revisited an album because it preserves a particular summer, a particular car, a person whose number we no longer have. Sometimes the record collection is an autobiography. Sometimes it is evidence we keep rearranging.

Seeing High Fidelity with an audience offers the pleasure of discovering which moments still produce a laugh and which now land a little harder. The live conversation afterward promises a further shift in perspective, opening the evening beyond Rob Gordon’s record-store universe to Cusack’s career.

"I'm just really happy 25 years later people still get some enjoyment out of it," Cusack said during a Q&A following a 25th-anniversary screening of High Fidelity at Minneapolis’s Uptown Theater, reported by The Minnesota Star Tribune on June 7, 2025.

For those seeking a more personal encounter, VIP packages include a premium seat, a post-show meet-and-greet experience and a photo opportunity with Cusack. Package details are subject to change. The film is rated R for adult language or content. Event information and tickets are available through the official event page.

Bring someone who understands your taste in music. Or someone willing to challenge it.

High Fidelity makes a persuasive case that the second person may have more to offer.

https://youtu.be/OA9gPtWDiww?si=mKfq90alW3MuPbUE