One of the year's best and most delightful surprises

Rating: 10/10 (8 October 2008)

There's a true vibe of believability in the characters of Nick & Norah that make them jump right off the screen. It's rare to see or even say something like this for a teen film, but not since Ferris Bueller's Day Off have I felt this kind of excitement for a film of this kind. Funny and wholly realistic, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is not only funny, but it has its heart in the right place, and thanks to winning performances from its two leads it also manages to make it an intelligent teen film that has more to it that what the trailer has presented to us.
As our story opens, Nick (Michael Cera) is an aspiring straight guitarist in a queercore band called The Jerk Offs who has recently been dumped by his girlfriend Tris (Alexis Dziena) and is having a hard time getting over it. So hard, in fact, that he continues to make mix CDs for her. CDs that she secretly throws away only to be salvaged by her friend Norah Silverburg (Kat Dennings). Norah is a rich girl living in the shadow of her father, but is also quite lonely and without a boyfriend of her own. However, on this night, at a gig in Manhattan, Nick & Norah will meet, pretend to be together for five minutes to make Tris jealous (She showed up with another guy), and realize that the night has only just begun, as Norah's drunk friend Caroline (Ari Graynor) will get lost, Nick's bandmates will go far to change his unhappiness, and while on the search for a secret show by an ultra-secretive band, Nick & Norah might just discover that their love of the same music won't be the only thing that have in common.
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist has all of the elements of being just a normal teen comedy, but with this being based off a very popular young adult novel, the idea begins to transcend off the page and into our fresh movie psyche. The film has a lot of ideas and almost all of them work (even the one with the gum, which might gross some out. Believe me, my audience felt that hard!) Still, there are a lot of laughs to be had throughout the film. Just the fact that our main guy drives a Yugo is funny by itself. It needs no explanation because of what we see on screen.
Even its soundtrack seems to be an infinite playlist onto itself as well. As the film unfolded before me and every song played, I knew that the feeling I had was that I was something truly special unfold in front of my eyes. The songs are so infectious that they could have been the movie itself and it still would've worked. Just look at some of the choices they made (Bishop Allen, We Are Scientists, The Dead 60s, and Vampire Weekend among others) and you can sense that director Peter Sollett took his time in choosing these songs, as each one of them describe this night bigger than just a slight memory, but more as a big adventure. Even the underscore by Mark Motherbaugh feels the same vibe (even though it seems more routed in 1980s mentality with a touch of modern day sensibility), which I really loved as it carried the film through its end.
Still, the film earns its four-star rating because of this: The final 10-15 minutes, which are as perfect as I have ever seen for any film in at least a couple of years. The film almost stops the comedy and goes for broke by capturing our hearts in a way that few films can. This infectious finale is not only perfectly executed, but also goes for a unpredictable moment that seems very funny on one hand, but on the other touches us deeply. It is a testament to Cera and Dennings that this finale works as well as it does. I thought it was impossible to really do a perfect finale, but director Peter Sollet and his actors managed to pull off an ending that is as mesmerizing as anything I've seen this year.
All of the performances throughout the film are excellent, and Cera and Dennings are perfect casting as Nick & Norah. Not only are their performances winning, but they are truly relatable and they both have great chemistry throughout. Even when they do a scene involving bickering, the romantic tension is there to tell us that anything can happen as the night continues.
But in the end, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist reminded me of all of John Hughes's teen comedies, which always had something more going on underneath the surface. In that sense, this film goes for that same kind of go-for-broke attitude that not only pays off, but it pays off big with some real intelligence, which is the one thing I didn't know if I would see if I watched this film, but I saw it. None of the characters are stupid (some may be caricatures, like Norah's ex-boyfriend Tal, played very well by Tropic Thunder's Jay Baruchal, but that's as far as they go. In fact, Tal kind of reminded me of the oily bohunk the sister was going to marry in Sixteen Candles). Even the character of Caroline is played for broad laughs, but she is never dumb, she's just a misguided caricature.
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist may not change the world, but it stands out as one of the year's biggest and most delightful surprises. I knew I would like this film, but I never expected to walk out feeling like the film was staying with me. Leaving the film, I was floating on air from it, as I didn't want this to end. There isn't a wrong scene, nor does the movie provide anything extra, it just flows continuously like water down a stream.