Nick and Norah's Inifinite Playlist, book turned movie Options

[Melissa]

I remember reading Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan a few years ago and loving it. I knew they were making a movie and I just saw the casting.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0981227/

Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Juno, Superbad) and Kat Dennings (Charlie Bartlett) are going to be the main characters.

Has anyone read the book? I love Michael Cera, but I can't imagine him as Nick. I can't really see Kat Dennings as Norah, either. Oh well... I just hope it'll turn out good.

[mipadi]

It was an okay movie, although a better word to describe it would be "mediocre". It definitely didn't live up to its full potential or hype. I thought I'd really like it: I like movies about high school kids, I like sappy romance plots, and I love music. But the movie kind of fell flat. The plot was pretty stereotypical and predictable -- which is fine, as long as the movie has a little something else, like a lot of wit and unique characters. But the characters were pretty flat, too, and the script wasn't nearly as witty as I'd expected. There were a few good jokes, but overall it was kind of bland and predictable. And the music was really tangential to the plot; I feel like the script was written by someone who thought, "I like sappy romance and I like music, so how can I squash these things together?" I expected the music to be much more important, but aside from being at a few shows, music was hardly discussed at all, or even mentioned.

And there were a few parts that were kind of...well, stupid. Like, why were all of Nick's friends gay? That didn't play into the plot at all. Their sexuality really didn't matter one bit. And the subplot with Norah's friend was humorous at times, but also pretty stereotypical and not really necessary.

There were a few good one-liners and a few gems of wisdom interspersed throughout the film, but otherwise, the writing was pretty flat.

I dunno, somehow I still kind of liked it, but it was pretty mediocre in my opinion. I haven't read the book (yet), but I get the sense that the book was a lot better, but didn't translate into a 90-minute film that well.