'Nick and Norah's Ultimate Playlist' a love letter to youth

By Stephen Whitty
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

October 2, 2008

If the title “Nick and Norah's Ultimate Playlist” makes you think, vaguely, of some terribly sophisticated couple mixing martinis, pampering their small dog Asta and elegantly solving mysteries – well, you are so not this film's target audience.

Because this couple – and that's Norah with an H, thank you – are not a pair of art-deco detectives, but a couple of alt-rock high-school seniors. And the only mystery their movie is concerned with is whether or not they can find true, hip happiness together.

The odds are good.

So is their movie – a Gen Whatever twist on a Hollywood romantic comedy that takes two kids from New Jersey, drops them off in New York, and then sends them on an all-night, downtown pursuit of a rumored club gig by an underground band called Where's Fluffy.

Of course, along the way they happen to find each other, too – and a few surprising twists.

Nick – the only straight member of an all-gay band whose name can't be printed here – is played by Michael Cera, who's been in recent danger of being overexposed in movies like “Superbad” and “Juno.” Underutilized too – too often Cera plays an amiable mope, the sort of kid with a “Mean people suck” sticker on his skateboard.

DETAILS “Nick and Norah's Ultimate Playlist” Rating: PG-13 When: Opens tomorrow Running time: 1 hr., 30 min.

He has a little more spark here, though, and he's nicely challenged by Kat Dennings' Norah, a girl with a mouth on her (and, of course, the usual insecurities underneath). Dennings has been typed a bit lately, too – the spoiled, sarcastic kid in movies like “Charlie Bartlett” and “The House Bunny.” But just as she sharpens Cera's edge, he softens hers.

Thankfully, although Nick is from Hoboken and Norah is from Englewood – and he has a heartless ex, and she has a brainless friend, who are both from hunger – the movie doesn't take the usual potshots at its bridge-and-tunnel dreamers, with what-exit jokes, Mafioso gags and big-hair stereotypes.

But while it doesn't dis the suburbs, it's really a love letter to New York, a place where the next great club is just around the corner and you can always get a plate of pierogi at Veselka. To youth (as in “Peanuts,” parents and teachers never appear), with its endless reserves of optimism. And, ultimately, to love itself.

That doesn't mean it's necessarily for everyone.

If you don't know what “straight edge” or “emo” means, the movie isn't going to stop to explain. And director Peter Sollett – whose last film was the rough-and-ready “Raising Victor Vargas” – doesn't shrink from crude language or gross-out close-ups. (Yes, there is a drunk girl along for the ride, and yes, she does end up vomiting.)

So, no argument, “Nick and Norah” would probably horrify the original Nick and Nora.

But their great-grandchildren will probably see it twice. And then text their friends to see it, too.

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