Movie/Book: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

[seraphcelene]

The 2008 film is nowhere near as complex or charming as the 2006 YA book. The style of the book just doesn't translate well to film and loses much of its intimacy and subtlety. The characters are pared down into simplistic components: gawky, emo Nick; shy, self-deprecating Norah; and spoiled, cookie cutter bitch Tris. Tris who is more "frenemy" than nemesis in the book is an out and out bad guy here and that is definitely to the detriment of the overall story. The other members of Nick's band, the Jerk Offs, become charming, if irresponsible, sidekicks who manage to lose Norah's best friend, Caroline, in a painfully constructed, gross, extraneous and somewhat slapsticky addition to the plot.

Much is changed from the novel to make it more friendly to a movie going audience - the book is very insular, traveling between the inner monologues of Nick and Norah - but, again, to the detriment of the overall story. The film flails around quite a bit and turns out to be alot less emo indie than its origins or the New York cityscape would like you to believe.

Kat Dennings is passable as Norah, capturing the awkward insecure grace notes of book Norah's defensive and angry shell. The cracking of that shell is part of the appeal of the novel as we watch Nick and Norah get under each other's skin. Norah has lost her fire, but still Nick gets to experience that dawning realization that he's begun to fall for another girl. Micheal Cera's Tris obsessed Nick still isn't as effectively cool and hipster as book Nick, but he's cute and we like him. Dennings and Cera play pretty well together, hemming and hawing their way towards mutual affection.

I might have been more satisfied if I hadn't read the book, but I doubt it. The movie I found disjointed and, at times, all over the place. The ending, however, was satisfying in its undemanding way and I smiled my way through the last five or so minutes.

Comments

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I really did not enjoy the book at all--I thought it was pretentious and hipster and unlikeable--but I enjoyed the movie, which surprised me.

[seraphcelene]

The book *is* pretentious and hipster, that's part of the point, and I think, the charm. Finding the authenticity within the artifice, in the structure AND the depiction of character, is what held me. I don't generally care for the style, but I found it did the self-indulgent self-awareness much more effectively than ... say ... Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

I was much more engaged by the landscape, the people, and their antics in the book then in the film. There is a severe loss of depth in the translation, part of which really is caused by the way the characters are flattened (especially, I think, Tris). The movie wasn't unlikeable, I just found that I didn't really care about the characters or their episodic hijinks.

[my_daroga]

Thanks for the review. I haven't read the book, and gave the film a pass since it looked too self-consciously "indie" to me (read: Hollywood!indie), and your review did little to dispel my hasty prejudice.

[seraphcelene]

Considering your reaction to Juno, I think that you wouldn't like this film. The book ... I don't know, but probably not the film. Although, it's a lot less crafted than Juno so might find it more authentic. Juno overplays it, but I think that Nick & Norah almost misses the boat. But that could be me reading as an outsider. There could be a nuance to the film that I am missing because I'm not "in" the scene. Juno hit me over the head with its obviousness and made enough broad pop culture references that I "got it". Nick & Norah (the book) fits closer into that vein although without Juno's slickness.

Also, my view of the film is very much colored by the book. I generally try to divorce the two, but there are so many changes that it was hard for me to forget what I was expecting to see. Maybe if I got the chance to watch it a second time it would work better. The first X-Men movie went that way for me. I had to watch it a second time, not expecting the comic book to really enjoy it. Although the changes they made weren't bad ones, they just weren't what I was expecting. I feel that the changes made in Nick & Norah greatly disrupted the feel and the tone of the narrative.

I'd be very curious to read your critique of the book.

[my_daroga]

I think my reaction to Juno implied I was in "the scene" or some kind of "scene" which I am not; it was just that I happened to get most of the references and found them mis-applied or done "wrong." So the in-your-faceness felt like "trying too hard," like an outsider was trying to appear hip to me or someone like me (or someone hipper than me, which I am not; I'm actually pretty behind a lot of music stuff).

Then again, I haven't been watching a lot of new movies today in general, as there are so many old ones playing around here I'm interested in. But I'll keep an eye out for the book!