Genre Grandeur – Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist (2008)

For our last guest entry in this month’s Genre Grandeur (before my finale), I present you with a review from Kim of Tranquil Dreams.  If you don’t already follow her site, I urge you to do so.  Her site is filled with great movie reviews, photo challenges, workout updates  and lots of interesting recipes.

 

without further ado, here’s her review…..

 

Romantic comedies are one of my favorite genres.  When Rob chose this for April, I stared at the screen and started wondering what to choose.  I think 30% of my collection (at least) is romantic comedies.  Plus, I’ve already reviewed most of my faves on my own blog so after some debate, I decided to not go mainstream and chose Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

 

 

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2008)

Director: Peter Sollett

Cast: Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, Ari Graynor, Jay Baruchel, Aaron Yoo, Rafi Gavron

 

Nick is stuck in a rut because his girlfriend Tris leaves him.  When his band, The Jerkoffs comes to ask him to go perform, he refuses but then when they hear that Where’s Fluffy, a mysterious band that needs their fans to hunt them down for their shows is announced that they will be playing somewhere in New York City, it makes him agree to leave the house.  After their performance, he ends up not only seeing Tris with another guy but he himself also being kissed by a stranger called Norah, who uses him unknowingly as her pretend boyfriend for Tris. The night ends up being a search for many things: a band, Norah’s missing and drunk friend Caroline but that leaves two strangers to search their feelings and figure out how simple loving someone could be also.

 

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist sounds dorky and silly from the get go.  I remember looking at this over and over again at the stores and not wanting to see it because it just looked like it had so much potential to be bad.  However, I am a fan of Michael Cera (especially after seeing him in Juno and Scott Pilgrim) and Kat Dennings (even before her Thor days).

 

As pointless as the plot seems, it was pretty fun and lighthearted for the most part.  The music mostly helped lighten the mood and the turn of events sometimes hit borderline disgusting (for one bit) but mostly very entertaining and humorous.  Mostly a lot of laugh out loud moments for me. Not only did Michael Cera and Kat Dennings deliver, they had a very cute (and still awkward) vibe.  They portrayed the weirdness of two strangers at the beginning of the night to truly being honest about themselves and to each other by the end of the night.  The setting of the whole New York bustling busy nights and night life added to the movie as well.

 

Sure, this is nothing like teenage romantic comedies like Say Anything or Sixteen Candles but it does aim to be in that area.  It wasn’t about them falling in love as much as its about them learning to love and figuring out a bunch of things along the way.  Its not like the typical romantic comedy out there and that is what makes it nice and sets it apart.  It is cute, fun and entertaining with massive love and emphasis on music.  All these aspects work for me!

Is it my favorite romantic comedy? No. But, it has an undeniable feel good factor that I can’t brush aside.  I know that I had a smile plastered on my face through a good part of it and thats already good enough for me. No one expects masterpieces from romantic comedy but at least it wasn’t the normal cheesy stuff and a plus is that it was stupid enough that my boyfriend mocked it, but actually sat through it.  I think that gives it some extra points 🙂

Thanks again to Kim for this amazing review!

 

Just a reminder that I am already accepting reviews for May’s Genre Grandeur with the genre – crime movies.

If you’d like to participate just send me your review to crime@movierob.net