PREGAME THOUGHTS

I was in the middle of college when this came out, at a time when it seemed like quirky indie romance movies were hitting the theaters constantly like a barrage of my paintballs against your face. Most of the ones I saw were garbage (She’s Out of My League), some were ok (500 Days of Summer), but most I never bothered seeing.

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist had always intrigued me for its title alone, although I wasn’t expecting much from it. It almost sounded more sappy and Hallmark-y than you would get from a late ’00s indie romance romp. But, now, in 2023, I find myself with an opportunity to watch it! Was I missing out for these last 15 years?? Will this change my life???

THE 250(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

Once things get going, most of the movie takes place over the course of one evening. Michael Cera is Nick, a very Michael Cera character who plays bass in a band called The Jerk-Offs. Nick pines over his ex, Tris (Alexis Dziena), who is also a friend of Norah (Kat Dennings) and Caroline (Ari Graynor). Try to keep up, I know I’m throwing A TON OF NAMES AT YOU. Nick keeps making Tris mixtapes that Norah finds interesting. And so begins the budding romance sight unseen!

Nick’s gay friends and bandmates, Dev (Rafi Gavron) and Thom (Aaron Yoo), hoist Nick out of his funk in order to play a gig and then try to find a secret show by a band called “Where’s Fluffy?” somewhere in Manhattan.

Norah, Tris, and Caroline end up at the Jerk-Offs show, and this is where the sequence of events unfold. Tris teases Norah for not having a boyfriend, Norah asks Nick to pretend to be her boyfriend, Caroline drinks too much, Dev and Thom offer to try to find Caroline so that Nick and Norah can spend more time together, Caroline escapes from Dev and Thom’s van after thinking they’re going to rape her, Nick and Norah meet up with Dev and Thom to try to find Caroline, and omg lol the hijinks never end.

Nick eventually offers to give Tris a ride home, deserting Norah. He feels bad later and apologizes. They meet up at Electric Lady Studios, which, as it turns out, is owned by Norah’s father. They fuck in the music studio.

Not much else of importance happens after that! Jay Baruchel is also in this movie. If you’re like me, you barely know who he is.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — I Didn’t Like This Movie

Aside from the touching moments near the end in Electric Lady Studios, and the hilarious concept of straight guy Nick in a queercore band with his three gay best friends, I found this Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist dull and meandering. People seem to like this type of movie, like The Hangover or Dude, Where’s My Car? where most of the movie is just driven by a thin plot, characters bouncing from one locale to the next looking for someone or something. Nick and Norah handles it a little better, but the characters are barely fleshed out anyway and I wasn’t invested in any of them. I wasn’t invested in the story. A lot of the time was spent slowly building Nick and Norah’s relationship into something positive by the end of the night, but I didn’t care. She likes his taste in music, there’s a whole trope where the girl uses her existence to get the dejected boy back on track, she’s pleasant and awkward, he’s pleasant and awkward, it’s all very middle of the road.

Perhaps the pacing is just too quick. Almost the whole movie takes place over the course of one evening, so there’s some suspension of disbelief that these two would start falling for each other. They never get really lovey-dovey, which I appreciate and do find realistic, but I never felt there was this Aha! moment between them before they get to the studio. People comment on their great chemistry, but I didn’t pick up on it. Everything felt too shallow to matter.

Is that enough? One more thing. There’s a scene where the drunk girl pukes in a train station public restroom and fishes her gum out of the vomit-filled toilet. Fucking gross.

TOPIC 2 — Michael Cera

The masses saw three years of George Michael Bluth and thought “hey, yeah, we need a lot more of this”, apparently. This guy was everywhere between 2007 and 2010 and, obviously, that over-saturation caused a quick decline. What else has he really been in since 2012 besides the two extra seasons of Arrested Development? I don’t recognize any of the credits after Scott Pilgrim.

I used to be charmed by Michael Cera, but I’m almost exactly his age. That, and, like anyone else charmed by Michael Cera, they see a lot of themselves in him. This is especially true of his George Michael era; being in high school at the time, it was like watching myself on TV. It still makes me cringe to this day, but that was part of the genius of Cera’s performances. He was the quintessential awkward teenager for most of the ’00s.

Obviously, it started wearing thin when he started getting older. Suddenly, this awkward man-child wasn’t as fun to watch bumble around like he’s afraid to talk to girls. And then it became obvious that, as good as he is at what he does, he doesn’t have much range as an actor.

On top of it all, his handsome boyishness isn’t there anymore. The dude looks like he’s got a Brillo pad stuck to his head these days. Very uncouth.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

Norah is a Jewish girl attending a Catholic high school. This is explained in the book that Norah wants to attend any school Caroline does, but due to Caroline’s obnoxious behavior, she’s kicked out of every school she’s been to and is only accepted at a Catholic school.
So Norah gets to decide which school she gets to go to? Norah’s dad is too busy running a music studio that he can’t even say “no” to her daughter’s obsession with switching schools every time her shitty friend gets kicked out of one? This angers me.

Nick’s cellphone ring tone is “Boys Don’t Cry” by The Cure. (The lyrics tell the story of a man who has given up trying to regain the love of a girl that he has lost, and tries to disguise his true emotional state by “laughing, hiding the tears in [his] eyes, ’cause boys don’t cry”.)
lol, if I had a ringtone of The Cure I’d probably keep my phone on vibrate indefinitely.

The trailer shows an alternate version of the club scene kiss with Nick and Norah. When Tris comes up to ask them how they met – it is Nick who tells Tris that they have the same dentist. In the actual movie, Norah is the one that tells this to Tris.
THAT IS VERY INTERESTING. COLOR ME VERY INTERESTED. The alternate version would have really sunk this movie, I’m glad they decided to go with Norah on this one.

The Yugo that Nick drives is the same one that John McClane steals in Die Hard with a Vengeance.
The exact same one? Unlikely. If John McClane stole it, how does Nick O’Leary have it 13 years later? Idiot.

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

No. Nick & Norah’s Infinitely Playlist was capitalizing on Michael Cera’s mid-’00s fame, and there’s not much substance beyond that. Skip it! Thank you for playing.