Movie Review Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist (2008) 

Directed by Peter Sollett

Written by Lorene Scafaria 

Starring Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, Ari Graynor, Jay Baruchel

Release Date October 3rd, 2008

Published October 2nd, 2008 

One goal of a good critic is to try not to judge a movie before seeing it. That isn't so hard for me except when I really want to like a movie, sight unseen. I really wanted to like Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist before I saw it. I like the cast, I liked the premise. As I watched the movie I ignored my niggling doubts and kept track of the things I liked. Now, as I sit to write the review, the flaws are crisper and my lingering doubts have replaced much of things I tried hard to love.

Michael Cera is one of the most likable actors to come along in years. From his adorable George Michael Bluth on TV's Arrested Development to his breakout in Superbad and Juno, Cera has grown before our eyes and is prepared to become a huge comic star in the classic Tom Hanks vein. For his latest starring role he plays Nick a musician in a gay rock band.

Nick is not gay but his two bandmates are. Nick, as we meet him, is bumming over the end of his relationship with Tris, a bubble -headed private school girl who abruptly dumped him on his birthday. Thankfully, Nick's bandmates won't let him sit home and cry, they drag him off to New York City where they have a gig and then a quest to find a legendary band performing in secret.

Kat Dennings plays the Nora half of the title, a dyspeptic music loving soul who happens to be an acquaintance of Tris. As Tris has discarded Nick's many mixed cd's Nora has picked them out of the trash and found Nick a kindred musical soul, though they have never met. That changes that night in New York City when Nora, her best friend Caroline (Ari Graynor) and even Tris head into the city and happen upon Nick's band and a mutual quest for this mythical band "Where's Fluffy".

I won't give away Nick and Nora's meet cute other than to say the contrivance is pretty weak even by romantic comedy standards. Once together there is no question that they are meant to be together. The question then for director Peter Sollett is how to believably keep them apart until they are supposed to be together. Thanks to Cera and Denning's prickly repartee this is one of the few things that really works.

What doesn't work, quite shockingly, is the film's music conceit. In a movie called Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist one would quite fairly expect a lot of really great music. What you get is a lot of mediocre indie bands from some yet printed insert in Paste Magazine. The songs on Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist sound remarkably indistinguishable from one another, whiny alt-rockers too hip indies, gay rock. No R & B. No hip hop, this soundtrack has a remarkably white, bourgeois sensibility for an 'infinite' playlist.

Worse yet from my perspective was the filmmakers inability to craft one singular music/movie moment. In the best movies with strong musical sensibilities the filmmakers craft a scene that combines music and film in a way that transcends both expressions. Who can forget Say Anything and Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes, Moulin Rouge and the performance of Roxanne, every second of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's sublime duet in Once.

Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist needed a moment like that, an expression of the way Nick and Nora's musical souls were entwined. It is referred to and indeed assumed but it doesn't exist in the movie. I have many issues with Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist but none with stars Michael Cera and Kat Dennings. Cera and Dennings spark terrific chemistry first as strangers, then as sparring partners and finally as love interests. Dennings has toned down the goth persona that had driven her type casting as recently as August's The House Bunny, and the change serves her well.

Here, Dennings is a leading lady with quirks that set her apart from the typical rom-com heroine. As for Dennings' co-star? What more can I say about Michael Cera. The kid just gets better and better with each succeeding role. Even in this flawed teen-centric romance Cera crafts a thoughtful, humorous, well observed performance.

Both actors, as well as the tremendous, hard-working supporting work of Ari Graynor, are lost, adrift in a movie that knows the lyrics to every Judd Apatow, Cameron Crowe and John Hughes movie, but ironically not the music. Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist plays like a mix CD of Apatow, Crowe and Hughes and while I am not adverse to a good classic mix, I was hoping for something more... original.

With Cera and Dennings Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist has a lot working in its favor. Unfortunately, by recycling the best of teen-centric romance and coming up short on the music side of things, Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist fails to rise above its many influences. The movie really failed for me however by not finding one song and one moment to transcend all of the whole. The best movies with a strong musical presence do that.