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Craig Younkin
Movie Review
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
By Craig Younkin Published October 5, 2008
US Release: October 3, 2008
Directed by: Peter Sollett
Starring: Michael Cera , Kat Dennings
PG-13 for mature thematic material including teen drinking, sexuality, language and crude behavior.
Domestic Box Office: $31,286,789
Directed by: Peter Sollett
Starring: Michael Cera , Kat Dennings
PG-13 for mature thematic material including teen drinking, sexuality, language and crude behavior.
Domestic Box Office: $31,286,789
C+
Cera and Dennings are good together but the movie is way too pedestrian and barely manages to scrape a few decent chuckles together, let alone some really good belly-laughs.
“Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” is a rarity, a mainstream movie with an independent sensibility about teenagers that actually looks like it’s about real-life teenagers. The trailer reminds me of the Doug Liman movie “Go” in a lot of ways but I’m also getting an “American Graffiti”-type vibe as well and the “Star Wars” geeks can send hate mail if they want but I still think that’s the coolest movie George Lucas has ever done. So I’m more than willing to check out a flick about one wild night in the life of young adults and I’m also curious to see how Michael Cera can do carrying a film without a Jonah Hill or McLovin to back him up and also how a seemingly indie teen film with two relatively unknown young stars like Cera and Kat Dennings will fare as far as attracting an audience. The film was directed by Peter Sollett, who also did minor indie hit “Raising Victor Vargas," and Lorene Scarfari wrote the screenplay that was actually based on a novel by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn. So here’s the question: Can “Nick and Norah” come through with a decent playlist or will they be as popular as the A-track?
Michael Cera plays Nick, a high school teenager still pining for his ex-girlfriend, Tris (Alexis Dziena), almost to a point of being unhealthy. Knowing they have to get their friend out of his bedroom, his buddies drag him to New York for a night in the city. Their goal to try to find the secret site where, what seemingly is the most popular band since The Beatles, is playing. The band is called, Wheres Fluffy. At one club in particular, Nick meets Norah (Kat Dennings). Norah is one of those girls who teeters on being socially accepted and feeling socially inept. She’s a sort-of friend of Tris’ who at this one particular club is on Norah’s case about not having a boyfriend. Feeling the need to show her up, Norah grabs the first guy she sees to pose and pretend to be her boyfriend and that guy happens to be Nick. Only later does Norah actually realize this is Tris’ Nick, a guy she has been into since collecting and discovering all the mix CD’s Nick made for Tris that she just threw in the trash. Tris is shocked by the sudden pairing and spends the rest of the night popping in and out on them. Meanwhile, circumstances throw Nick and Norah together for the evening, not just in trying to find the band but also Norah’s missing, ridiculously drunk friend Caroline (Ari Graynor).
Hoping for a smarter and more-lively teen comedy, I have to say I was pretty bored with most of this movie. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its good points. For one thing the characters really do seem like real 20th century teenagers. They all have their own sense of individualism and they all mask their fears with a fresh cynicism. The romance is next to zero though. Every time you want Nick and Norah to finally get right down to it and start relating to one another and coming closer together, it seems like a bitchy ex-girlfriend or prick ex-boyfriend or some rowdy friend comes along to lead them down a completely different road. And that road is seldom all that much fun. Most of the movie centers on the "find the AWOL friend and find out where the popular band is playing" and in that the movie really only comes off as slight, pedestrian and humorless. The closest this thing comes to laughs are easy jokes about getting drunk, one disgusting one involving a public toilet, some chewing gum and eating said chewing gum after the two have come together I really could have done without. However, even with all this, Nick and Norah finally get their time, and director Peter Sollett creates the right magical mood for a love story set on a New York night, but it comes so late in the film that at that point it's little more than too little, too late.
Cera and Dennings are cute together though and the biggest complement I can pay them is that they almost encouraged me to up the grade a little to a passable pretty good movie. Nobody plays awkward shyness to a more endearing effect than Cera. His low-key, nervous, uncomfortable reactions to things plus his natural ability to embrace social flaws make him both funny and sympathetic. And Dennings' charms are many. She has a cynical, spunky wit about her as well as the ability to show a teenager’s ability to be both vulnerable and unaffected at the same time. The rest of the cast does what it can. Ari Graynor is saddled with being the comic relief as the drunk best friend and she gets a few little laughs with middling material. Jay Baruchel and Alexis Dziena are both suitably the wrong-lover choices for the two protagonists, so wrong that you wonder how they got together with Norah and Nick to begin with. And Aaron Yoo, Rafi Gavron, and Jonathan Wright are entertaining as Nick’s three gay friends.
In addition, the movie has a really good alternative rock soundtrack that plays throughout the movie, featuring everyone from Vampire Weekend to Bishop Allen among others. I actually can’t get the Bishop Allen song out of my head. Unfortunately the soundtrack is more fun and consistent than the actual movie though. Cera and Dennings are good together and director Peter Sollett does a fairly decent job with them but the movie is way too pedestrian and barely manages to scrape a few decent chuckles together, let alone some really good belly-laughs. In closing, I want to end with the sad realization that this is still one of the better romantic comedies to come out this year, probably only second to “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” This is a genre that could really use a tune-up.
Michael Cera plays Nick, a high school teenager still pining for his ex-girlfriend, Tris (Alexis Dziena), almost to a point of being unhealthy. Knowing they have to get their friend out of his bedroom, his buddies drag him to New York for a night in the city. Their goal to try to find the secret site where, what seemingly is the most popular band since The Beatles, is playing. The band is called, Wheres Fluffy. At one club in particular, Nick meets Norah (Kat Dennings). Norah is one of those girls who teeters on being socially accepted and feeling socially inept. She’s a sort-of friend of Tris’ who at this one particular club is on Norah’s case about not having a boyfriend. Feeling the need to show her up, Norah grabs the first guy she sees to pose and pretend to be her boyfriend and that guy happens to be Nick. Only later does Norah actually realize this is Tris’ Nick, a guy she has been into since collecting and discovering all the mix CD’s Nick made for Tris that she just threw in the trash. Tris is shocked by the sudden pairing and spends the rest of the night popping in and out on them. Meanwhile, circumstances throw Nick and Norah together for the evening, not just in trying to find the band but also Norah’s missing, ridiculously drunk friend Caroline (Ari Graynor).
Hoping for a smarter and more-lively teen comedy, I have to say I was pretty bored with most of this movie. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its good points. For one thing the characters really do seem like real 20th century teenagers. They all have their own sense of individualism and they all mask their fears with a fresh cynicism. The romance is next to zero though. Every time you want Nick and Norah to finally get right down to it and start relating to one another and coming closer together, it seems like a bitchy ex-girlfriend or prick ex-boyfriend or some rowdy friend comes along to lead them down a completely different road. And that road is seldom all that much fun. Most of the movie centers on the "find the AWOL friend and find out where the popular band is playing" and in that the movie really only comes off as slight, pedestrian and humorless. The closest this thing comes to laughs are easy jokes about getting drunk, one disgusting one involving a public toilet, some chewing gum and eating said chewing gum after the two have come together I really could have done without. However, even with all this, Nick and Norah finally get their time, and director Peter Sollett creates the right magical mood for a love story set on a New York night, but it comes so late in the film that at that point it's little more than too little, too late.
Cera and Dennings are cute together though and the biggest complement I can pay them is that they almost encouraged me to up the grade a little to a passable pretty good movie. Nobody plays awkward shyness to a more endearing effect than Cera. His low-key, nervous, uncomfortable reactions to things plus his natural ability to embrace social flaws make him both funny and sympathetic. And Dennings' charms are many. She has a cynical, spunky wit about her as well as the ability to show a teenager’s ability to be both vulnerable and unaffected at the same time. The rest of the cast does what it can. Ari Graynor is saddled with being the comic relief as the drunk best friend and she gets a few little laughs with middling material. Jay Baruchel and Alexis Dziena are both suitably the wrong-lover choices for the two protagonists, so wrong that you wonder how they got together with Norah and Nick to begin with. And Aaron Yoo, Rafi Gavron, and Jonathan Wright are entertaining as Nick’s three gay friends.
In addition, the movie has a really good alternative rock soundtrack that plays throughout the movie, featuring everyone from Vampire Weekend to Bishop Allen among others. I actually can’t get the Bishop Allen song out of my head. Unfortunately the soundtrack is more fun and consistent than the actual movie though. Cera and Dennings are good together and director Peter Sollett does a fairly decent job with them but the movie is way too pedestrian and barely manages to scrape a few decent chuckles together, let alone some really good belly-laughs. In closing, I want to end with the sad realization that this is still one of the better romantic comedies to come out this year, probably only second to “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” This is a genre that could really use a tune-up.
Craig's Grade: C+
Craig's Overall Grading: 340 graded movies
| A | 10.9% | |
| B | 41.8% | |
| C | 31.8% | |
| D | 15.3% | |
| F | 0.3% |
