Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
For everyone out there who thinks that the epitome of modern romance is a pale stalker watching you sleep who will have rough sex with you, please do yourselves a favor and watch “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist”. In many respects the anti-“Twilight”, “Nick and Norah” is not just a more romantic, more reachable, and more likable piece of cinematic storytelling, it’s simply a more compelling piece of work.
It’s been a month since Nick (Michael Cera) and Tris (Alexis Dziena) have broken up, but he’s still not over her. Norah (Kat Dennings), who goes to the same school as Tris, has harbored a growing fondness for Nick, whom she has never met, but she’s been pilfering the mixtapes he’s been sending Tris, who always throws them away immediately. One night, the three all happen to be in the same bar; Nick is playing as the only straight member of the otherwise all-gay group The Jerk-Offs, while Norah is in the crowd and Tris is there with her new boyfriend. Before long, Norah has asked Nick to pretend to be her boyfriend to save face in front of Tris, without knowing whom he is. The rest of the movie is not quite a mad dash, but more of a laid-back barhop as the two attempt to find Norah’s drunk friend Caroline (Ari Graynor), and the location of a secret concert by a band called “Where’s Fluffy” of which both Nick and Norah are immense fans of. Along the way of course, sparks fly between the two, though the road to love is full of potholes.
Michael Cera is in danger of being typecast as the lovable geek loser; it’s a role he’s played in all of his famous productions, “Arrested Development,” “Juno,” and now this film. It’s a good thing he does it so well. His role of Nick, a guy between relationships, is a tough balancing act. Too much moping over his ex-girlfriend and the character becomes unlikable. On the other hand, if he jumps for Norah too soon, he can come off as a horny bastard. Cera plays the middle ground expertly, while still giving Nick a sense of the underdog. Nick is honestly confused when it comes to girls, and when he does finally come to his senses, it’s almost applause-worthy.
Norah, Nick’s love interest who is palyed by Kat Dennings, is cut from a more familiar cloth. She’s the charming, girl-next-door type who’s an intellectual, but still loves to have a bit of fun. You do get the sense that her character overanalyzes things a tad too much, but girls of her sort do that all the time. In a way, her role is harder than Nick, because we all know girls like Norah, and Dennings does the role justice.
The city of New York also plays a big role in this movie too. True, the streets are never going to be that devoid of cars and people (it sometimes seems like no one under the age of 20 exists), but the movie sucks you in so well that by the end, you want to visit the Big Apple and spend the night wandering around like the film’s characters.
Finally, part of what made the film so strong is that it creates a strong sense of nostalgia. We know, maybe we even are, people like Nick and Norah and their wacky bunch of friends, and we can certainly remember zany nights spent awake, long into the morning, talking about intellectual-nonsense and the meaning of life and love. We know the feeling of discovering great music and sharing it with only a select group of friends, the same group of friends whom we share bad breakups and awkward crushes with as well. This sense of a shared existence and of empathy with the characters makes this movie work so well that we can’t help but watch it more than once, like a good playlist on your iPod, and sharing earbuds so that you can listen to it at the same time over and over with your special friend.
Project: Column 