Fuck me for liking this at all. Juno meets Garden State, minus the pregnant teenagers and dead mothers. Cheesily predictable and totally unrealistic (inasmuch as a film where kids drive around New York City all night can be unrealistic). Really not good, at all.
I'm torn. On the one hand, I think Michael Cera would serve the world best if he hung up his acting spikes right now, and went out -- well not at his apex, per se, but on a relatively high point on the downward slope that his career is currently stumbling along. On the other, I will continue to watch all movies featuring Michael Cera. Quite a paradoxical pickle. It could possibly be remedied by M.C. developing, oh I don't know, a second dimension maybe? Auditioning for a role that wasn't "18/M/nerd/gets hot chick"? We haven't seen any evidence that this will turn out good, true. But, it could possibly derail M.C.'s career so much that he starts getting refused for Drillbit Taylor II, so there's an upside amidst all this downside. Or I could just wait until he turns 25.
This movie is retarded for myriad reasons. Nick (Cera) plays a virtual clone of himself in Juno, with the nervous-geek-tics knob at 5 instead of 6. He wallows in self-pity and makes indie rock mixtapes for his bimbo-hot ex-girlfriend -- a relationship which seems... forced, to say the least (Things That Don't Represent Reality #1). Upon receipt of these mixtapes, the ex is constantly throwing them into the trash at Catholic school, where uber-hip but also straightedge (TTDRR #2) Norah (Kat Dennings) regularly finds them, takes them home, and adores them (TTDRR #3). Norah is Jewish, her dad is a big Jewy music exec, and at some point in the movie, she recites some Hebrew scripture bullshit, yet she goes to Catholic school (TTDRR #4).
Nick is in a high school rock band with his closest friends, who are both gay (TTDRR #5). They play a show in New York, where Nick meets Norah, and some horribly contrived teen-drama bullshit happens which did not even bear telling, let alone retelling. Nick leaves with Norah, while Nick's bandmates agree to drive home Norah's drunk friend, although this is probably TTDRR #6, since Nick and his friends live in Hoboken and Norah and her friend live in Englewood. But let's not let trivial details distract from such a revolutionary storyline.
Short story shorter: Norah's friend gets lost in New York. Apparently, in the alternate universe that is this movie, when you lose someone on a Friday night in New York City, the unquestionably correct move is to drive around aimlessly -- from Hell's Kitchen to Brooklyn -- hoping to see them on the street (TTDRR #7). This might seem blazingly retarded at first glance, but trust me: It's even moreso on second glance.
As you might be able to discern, nothing of any substance really occurs in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. The rest of the movie features Nick and Norah driving around the city, listening to his mixtapes (which, as per the standards of the aforementioned Garden State and Juno, are fairly meh), getting detached from one another (and necessarily finding each's respective SO before realizing that the status quo sucked and life could only be joyous if they refound each other and rekindled the fire of the 5 and 1/2 hour relationship), having sex in Norah's dad's recording studio (apparently the way kids do it these days is with jeans on -- who knew?) and then running around the city some more.
They tried to discuss "hip" music once, and failed on such an epic level that I must assume that the screenwriter was personally attacked in a Pitchfork album review. Norah is looking at Nick's iPod and remarks that she loves his taste in music, except for The Cure. Nick says "wat," and Norah says "well, I'm fine with their music, it's just the name -- The Cure. What are they 'The Curing?'"
I wept.
