Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

I loved this movie. It was easily one of the best times I've had at the movies this year. It's getting mixed reviews, but I think it's a case of - as cliched as it sounds - the critics truly being too old to enjoy it. This is really a film for people 25 and under. It captures a time and a place and it's going to seem foreign to anyone who hasn't experienced it. This is a movie for young people, and if that includes you, get ready. This picture doesn't talk down to you, and it doesn't go out of its way to pretend it knows you. It may sound like I'm overstating it here, but in my mind I'm right on target: This movie captures the youth of today in the way American Graffiti did in its time.
Graffiti is seen today as an all-encompassing portrait of American youth in the early sixties, but in reality it focuses mostly on the "cruising" subculture of the time, and branches out from there. Nick and Norah is set among the indie music scene, and while this could have easily turned into a studio plot to target a specific audience, in the hands of the filmmakers it becomes not a gimmick, but a way to define these characters.
The world of this film is a world without adults. The night, as always, belongs to the youth. And for the youth of this film, for whom music plays such an important part in their lives, the big city is the only destination. It's hard for me to think of a movie in recent memory that has captured the excitement of the city that young people experience. A break from suburbia, if only for a few hours on a Saturday night, was the best feeling in the world. Anyone who lived within driving distance of a major city as a teenager will identify with this film.
This is not a perfect film, but there's so much in the movie that works, and it does so much right, that it's an easy movie to fall in love with. Some critics have criticized the movie for a lack of conflict, but that's one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much. It's so refreshing to see a movie that has such love and affection for its characters, and a group of filmmakers so confident in their material, that they allow their characters to live and breathe and interact and communicate, and refuse to bog that down with irrelevant plot points and unneeded character conflict. I was so dreading the ending of the picture, fearing the film would go where most relationship movies go: where the girl finds the guy in some sort of situation which prompts her to leave him, and thus he has to win her back in some way. How many times have we seen that? Thankfully, this movie's smarter than that. If that's the sort of thing the critics are talking about when lamenting about the lack of "conflict", then it seems as if they've grown accustomed to the tired formulas.
This is director Peter Sollett's second film after 2002's great Raising Victor Vargas, and it was well worth the wait. Vargas cost a mere $800,000 and was shot on Super-16mm, and even though Nick and Norah cost $9 million and was shot on 35mm, his style has remained consistent: it's a very intimate film, with lots of film grain and beautifully underlit settings. Everyone was amazingly well-cast, from leading roles to supporting players, and it goes without saying that Michael Cera and Kat Dennings are a great on-screen couple. And although most attention will probably go to its great selection of songs, one of the biggest successes of the film is the original musical score by Mark Mothersbaugh, known for his frequent collaborations with Wes Anderson. The score really holds everything together, and does a nice job of underscoring some emotional moments at the end.
So yes, without a doubt, go check this one out. If it sounds like your type of movie, or you're a fan of someone in the cast, you probably won't be disappointed. And just a quick film-geek note: this was the first film I've ever seen projected digitally, and let me say... wow. It was only a 2k projection, and it looked beautiful. No artifacting whatsoever, and this movie was shot on film and had lots of grain. Well, the days of $3,000 film prints are over. I can't wait for more theaters to get digital projection installed. Not to mention it'll be much easier (and cheaper) for independent films to be distributed. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: film is dead.