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Page to Screen by Claire E. Gross Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, has a sort of cult-classic vibe that would seem to make it destined for cinema: its unshakeable sense of place is practically a love letter to New York City, center of cool; its charismatic leads are at once edgy and “straight-edge,” their confident city trekking offset by their romantic insecurities; its musical sensibilities are accessible but forward enough to demonstrate the characters’ (and authors’) hipness. The story has a seize-the-moment charge that carries it through an endless and magical night. And, to a degree, the movie does capture these qualities. There’s repackaging, sure, but the final product is still a sweet, romantic, idiosyncratic romp. Nick is the recently dumped bassist and sole straight member of a “queercore” band. Norah, a classmate of his ex, Tris, meets him at a show when, desperate to avoid Tris, Nick approaches her at random with a request to be his girlfriend for five minutes (in the book, that is; in the movie, it’s Norah who makes the request in response to Tris’s teasing). But a phenomenal kiss, a ride home for Norah’s drunk friend Caroline in the band van, and some matchmaking by Nick’s bandmates Dev and Thom unite the titular two for an impromptu, life-changing all-night date. That, in a nutshell, is the extent of the movie. The book, however, delved deeper, dealing with Norah’s rejection of college and fears of frigidity, with Nick’s maturation through heartbreak and healing. It is through this contrast that the difference between the two mediums becomes most apparent. Where Cohn and Levithan explored character, Lorene Scafaria’s screenplay throws more plot at the viewers instead. It’s a necessary choice, given the medium, but one that doesn’t serve the story, and fans hoping for a faithful adaptation will be disappointed in the loss of meaning. Newcomers, however, are likely to just sit back and enjoy. The movie focuses (and augments) the plot as a sort of quest, first for the mysterious location of the Where’s Fluffy concert, then for Caroline, who ditches Thom and Dev (whom she believes are kidnappers) and ends up lost in the city for most of the movie. The re-framing is a smart move, giving the movie some much-needed direction and freeing it from the convoluted explanations that strict adherence to the book would have required. Ari Graynor, in one of the most sparkling performances of the movie, plays Caroline with impeccable comedic inflection, and there were moments when the crowd screamed with laughter (or, in one memorable case of literal toilet humor, disgust). Still, I found a disturbing undercurrent of naiveté in this portrayal of a teenage girl, drunk, alone, wandering through a city in the middle of the night — and reaching the morning unscathed. It’s a nice fantasy, to be sure, but it undermines the cityscape credibility Cohn and Levithan established so well in the original. And while Kat Dennings (Norah) certainly has the doe eyes down and Michael Cera (Nick) manages a passable impression of coolness along with sweetness and vulnerability, neither successfully conveys the simmering sexuality, uncertainty in the future, and basic sass that made both characters so memorable in the book. The evil exes, Tris and Tal, are similarly robbed of their individuality: Alexis Dziena’s Tris is now a simple (slutty) teen queen, and there’s no trace of the intriguing frenemy relationship set up between her and Norah in the book; Jay Baruchel’s Tal is a slimy rock star wannabe with none of the holier-than-thou social activist stances that made his character unique. Dev and Thom, more minor characters, are sweetly portrayed by Rafi Gavron and Aaron Yoo, though the script renders their personalities nearly interchangeable. But these are minor quibbles. Where the movie truly falls down is in tackling a wholly stylistic challenge. The book relies heavily on internal monologues to convey backstory and, to a lesser degree, reactions. Without that context, the movie can’t sustain the book’s long sequences of one-on-one interaction, and, to compensate, spends less time developing Nick and Norah’s characters, instead favoring ensemble scenes — a poor substitute that makes the evolving romance feel rushed and uneven. Still more egregious are the movie’s attempts to regain the lost ground by throwing in brief, unexplored references to some of the book’s major themes and metaphors. Norah’s mentions of an upcoming year at Brown seem closer to bragging than worry, her concern that she can’t orgasm is voiced once in passing and then quickly dismissed, and her sudden, stilted explanation of tikkun olam (a Jewish philosophical concept of a broken world) is an even greater non sequitur than her Jewish identity itself. Why bother? These concepts never return to affect the narrative, and the attempts at deep meaning only underscore the movie’s lack of depth. And, ultimately, it doesn’t need to be deep. It’s still a smart, sweet, well-made romantic comedy that, taken on its own terms, mostly succeeds, appealing to teens with a tone neither sanctimonious nor gratuitously hip. It’s more laugh-out-loud funny than the novel, and the chemistry among all the characters (and particularly between the leads) is spot-on, even if their lines occasionally miss the target. The book was punk music — edgy, raw, frenetic, all emotion but rarely sweet. The film, then, is pop — saccharine and structured, but with a heck of a hook and just enough sincerity to stick.
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