A great throwback to when teen films let its characters just feel natural and real ... Juno, eat your heart out!

Rating: 8/10 (7 October 2008)

The teen romance genre is no stranger to formula. Often, the sequence of events will go: Audience meets boy, audience meets girl, boy and girl meet each other, and before you know it the sparks are flying and they're on the collision course of love. A thousand times this story has been told, in every genre, not just teen romance, and yet there's something innocent and magical about it in its simplicity it that keeps us coming back.
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist does not stray from the tried and tested plot arcs of its predecessors, but while the plot is expectedly familiar for the teen romance genre, what makes Nick and Norah stand out is how natural and real its characters feel. In a sense, Nick and Norah is a complete antidote to Cera's last film, Juno. As much as that film went overboard with attempts at wit and unrealistically setting up the characters for snark and pop culture humor, Nick and Norah plays the dialog and interaction completely genuine and real, director Peter Sollett simply lets his characters breathe and be the regular, real teenagers and human beings they are. The humor in the film comes from not forced wit and jokes, but only the natural conversation and glances that comes with youth and early romance, essentially what you'd find yourself laughing at in real life. Nick and Norah is probably the closest any film has gotten since Dazed and Confused to replicating the social teen dialog and conversational atmosphere.
Cera and Dennings, although both limited actors, bring natural charm and energy to their roles, an despite the romance arc being intentionally predictable from the beginning, manage to create a level of believability and sweetness to their courtship through the night. By the end of the film when they do cultivate their romance, it's hard not to find yourself happy that they did. The real star of the film comedically however, is Ari Graynor as Caroline, almost pitch perfectly playing the puking drunk girl we all knew and loved from our high school past. Never slipping into total absurdity or farce, Graynor's lost and drunk encounters throughout the night, including a certain piece of gum, an encounter at a train station, and of course, the toilet, provide the biggest laughs of the film.
Peter Sollett shoots the film in a fairly low-budget, natural way, which benefits the naturalistic feel of the acting and dialog. For the most part however, his contribution lies in the interaction with the actors over attempting anything artistically behind the camera. The film doesn't truly get going until 20 minutes in, as Nick and Norah aren't as interesting without each other, and Caroline isn't as interesting when she isn't drunk. However, as soon as the two title characters begin riding in Nick's Yuma and the script begins to unfurl the pitch perfect nervous conversational techniques between the two, the film takes off.
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is a film where the storyline may not be new and the end is foreseeable from miles away, but nevertheless, like a fairy tale you've heard many times before, you can't help but enjoy yourself along the way once again. As a nice throwback to teen romances like Say Anything or Sixteen Candles when the characters were allowed to feel real and as they are, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is a great and charming addition to the genre.
Review written for Worldofkj.com