Play On?

Brooklyn Jen knows her music. The tour guide in me appreciates a well-presented New York. We're both fans of the teen movie. In other words, our expectations for Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist were high.

Maybe too high?

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist meanders and sputters more than a 90-minute comedy should. An After Hours for Millennials, Peter Sollett’s flick drives audiences through a Friday night mainly on the Lower East Side as our eponymous characters, their friends and frenemies come together over - what else? - songs. Sollett films a valentine to New York nightlife; Lorene Scafaria’s script, based on a young-adult novel, contains witty barbs; yet Nick and Norah isn’t consistently in tune.

Michael Cera plays Nick, the latest entry in the awkward-cute pantheon of Cera characters (Juno, Superbad). The mixtape artist and sole straight member of a queercore band recently was dumped by pouty flirt Tris (Alexis Dziena). Kat Dennings is Norah, smart, musically connected and in an unhappy “friends with benefits” situation with Tal (Jay Baruchel). Of course, Nick and Norah are meant to be. (The Thin Man comedies aren’t referenced - no hip indie rock in those.) Naturally, bumps and wrong turns, literal and figurative, occur before the music of like flows.

Norah poignantly explains her relationship to Tal: “You’re ignored long enough, sometimes you just want to feel special.” The Nick/Tris link, though, confounds. One can see why doubt-laden Nick would want Tris, but her interest in him makes far less sense. She certainly doesn’t know where Fluffy is (a running plot in the film).


One storyline that is infinite: a gross gum gag. I’ll say only this - Norah’s drunk best friend (Ari Graynor) and a Port Authority toilet are involved.