Movie Review - Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008) -  Nerdy musician Nick (Michael Cera) is in love with alpha girl Tris (Alexis Dziena).  Sadly for him they went out for 6 months, she cheated on him the whole time and then dumped him.  Nick is still mooning over her and sends her mix CDs of indie rock groups.  Tris dumps them where her frenemy Norah (Kat Dennings) finds them and loves the music.  Eventually Nick and Norah meet, go on a rescue mission for Norah's friend and find something special between themselves.

This is kind of a silly movie.  A warm, charming and rather innocent silly movie.  The cast is almost entirely folks you never heard of (John Cho of Harold and Kumar and the latest Star Trek series has a REALLY small role, Andy Samberg has an even smaller one.  They along with Cera and Dennings are probably it for the "known names" in this one) and the story is very intimate.  The characters are mostly stock but that's OK.  They're only needed to perform stock dialogue while the story of Nick and Norah works itself out.  (Have we reached the point where the supposedly-shallow-sassy-gay-friend-who-really-has-a-heart-of-gold has become a cliche?).  They aren't asked to be anything beyond what they are and the actors playing them have such fun with them that you can't help but carried along.  The screenwriter, Lorene Scafaria limits herself to a single gross out joke and manages to turn the novel into a fun little rom/com.

I expected the music to play more a central role to the story but it's really just a backdrop for the story to play out against.  I'm thinking the soundtrack is a fairish collection of 2008 Indie Rock.  I happened to see part of one of my favorite "music nerd" movies right after seeing this (John Cusack in "High Fidelity") and thought "Nick is Rob as an even younger man".

Don't ask it to be more than it is and you'll have a great time.

Rating - **** Recommended