Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Encyclopedia
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist is a 2008 romantic comedy film
directed by Peter Sollett
and starring Michael Cera
and Kat Dennings
. Written by Lorene Scafaria
and based on the novel of the same name by Rachel Cohn
and David Levithan
, the story tells of teenagers Nick (Cera) and Norah (Dennings), who meet when Norah asks Nick to pretend to be her boyfriend for five minutes. Over the course of the night, together they try to find their favorite band's secret show and search for Norah's drunken best friend.
The film came into development in 2003 when producer Kerry Kohansky Roberts
found Cohn and Levithan's novel and decided to adapt it for film. Scafaria was hired to write the script in 2005, and Sollett signed on to direct the film in 2006. Principal photography took place over 29 days from October to December 2007, primarily in Manhattan
and Brooklyn
, New York City
. During the course of filming, the cast and crew slept during the day and filmed from dusk to dawn.
The film premiered on September 6, 2008 at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival
and was released theatrically on October 3, 2008. It tripled its US$
10 million budget with a total gross of US$33.5 million. An accompanying soundtrack was released on September 23, 2008, and the film was released on DVD
and Blu-ray
on February 3, 2009. It attracted generally positive reviews from critics and received nominations for three Satellite Awards, one GLAAD Media Award
, one MTV Movie Award
and one Golden Reel Award
.
in an "all gay band" called The Jerk-Offs, Nick O'Leary (Michael Cera
), a teenager from Hoboken
, New Jersey
, is heartbroken after his girlfriend, Tris (Alexis Dziena
), breaks up with him, and continues to make her "breakup" mix CDs. Thom (Aaron Yoo
) and Dev (Rafi Gavron
), his gay bandmates, who all hate Tris, convince him to perform at a club because his favorite band—the legendary, publicity-shy indie band "Where's Fluffy"—is performing somewhere in New York City that night. Norah Silverberg (Kat Dennings
) attends the same high school as Tris, Convent of the Sacred Heart
and though Norah and Tris dislike each other, they have a mutual friend named Caroline (Ari Graynor
). Norah, who shares Nick's taste in music, has been recovering his mix CDs after Tris discards them in the trash. That night, the three girls end up at Arlene's Grocery
on Manhattan
's Lower East Side
, where The Jerk-Offs are playing. Norah asks Nick to pretend to be her boyfriend to show up Tris. Norah kisses him, unaware that he is Tris' ex-boyfriend. Caroline gets drunk and Norah wants to take her home, but Nick's bandmates - who see Norah as a potential new girlfriend for him - offer to take Caroline home so Norah and Nick can spend time together trying to find the show.
After a confused Caroline escapes from Thom's van, Nick and Norah meet up again with Thom and Dev to try to find her. They first visit a club where Where's Fluffy? are rumored to be playing, but with no success. Tris, eager to win back Nick, follows them and gets a phone call from Caroline, who tells Norah that she has "found Jesus
" and an altar boy without pants. They find a drunk Caroline on stage at a gay cabaret dressed as a Christmas tree. When they arrive at Nick's car, Tris is sitting on the hood waiting for him. Before Nick leaves to go to talk to her, Norah tells him how nice it was to meet him, but he leaves without a response. An upset Norah meets up at a club with her friend with benefits
, Tal (Jay Baruchel
), but soon realizes that he has an ulterior motive and hopes to get a deal for his band with Norah's father, a record producer (Richard Waddingham). She agrees to pay for Tal and his friends' drinks, but she tells the waitress to increase the tab because there was a miscalculation, and she leaves him to pay. Nick, meanwhile, decides to confront Tris, but she tells him she wants to be together again and asks for a ride home. Tris asks Nick to stop by the river, where she tries to seduce him. Whilst she seductively dances in front of the car, Nick reminisces fondly about Norah and the night's events and drives away, leaving Tris behind.
Nick calls Norah, apologizing for leaving, and she agrees to meet him again. Deciding to go somewhere where no one they know will find them, they arrive at Electric Lady Studios
, a music studio owned by Norah's father. Once there, Norah gets Nick to play something he wrote in the studio, but then joins him in the recording room. Inside, they kiss and it is implied that Nick fingers
her to orgasm. Norah gets a text message from Caroline telling her where she found Where's Fluffy? playing. When they arrive at the show, they meet Tris, who cannot understand why Nick will not take her back, and Tal, who wants the same answer from Norah. Tal starts a fight with Nick, but Thom and Dev's friend, Lethario (Jonathan B. Wright
), steps in and headbutt
s Tal. Nick and Norah share a smile and leave together. At Pennsylvania Station
, Nick admits that he does not care about missing the concert, and they kiss on the escalator as the sun rises over New York City.
and David Levithan
, which producer Kerry Kohansky Roberts
brought into development as a film in 2003. Lorene Scafaria
was hired by Roberts in early 2005 to adapt the novel for Chris
and Paul Weitz
and Focus Features
; the script was her first film adaptation
. Peter Sollett
signed on to direct the film in 2006, when the script was in its second draft, and collaborated with Scafaria. Scafaria said that Norah "was me on the page", while Sollett felt that as a teenager he was "not dissimilar to Nick". Both had similar experiences to Nick and Norah, commuting into Manhattan
at night, Scafaria from New Jersey and Sollett from Staten Island
.
Cohn and Levithan had written the novel in alternating chapters: Cohn wrote every second chapter from Norah's perspective and Levithan wrote every other chapter from Nick's perspective. Cera and Dennings recorded voice-over
narration to mimic the first-person
perspective from which the novel is written, but the voice-overs were not included in the final cut of the film. Scafaria says that the differences between the novel and the film were "to make it a little more cinematic". She said that Nick and Norah's parents were written out of the script "to absorb what it's like to be young, [because] you're not thinking about your parents when you're out all night". In addition to searching for Where's Fluffy?, Sollett felt that the film needed a second MacGuffin
to propel the story forwards, so Norah's best friend Caroline got drunk and then lost, giving Nick and Norah an additional objective.
The characters' names are inspired by Dashiell Hammett
's characters, Nick and Nora Charles
.
10 million, principal photography
of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist took place from late October to early December 2007. The film was shot over 29 days in one-week blocks, and was one of the first to receive a filming subsidy from the state of New York under the "Made in NY" incentive program. Filming took place mainly in Manhattan's East Village
and Lower East Side
, as well as Williamsburg
, Brooklyn
. Filming locations included Katz's Delicatessen, Mercury Lounge
, Arlene's Grocery
, Pennsylvania Station
, Port Authority Bus Terminal
, the Veselka restaurant and Don Hill's bar. Union Pool, a bar in Brooklyn, was also used for filming but requested to be called "Brooklyn Pool" in the film, and Norah's father's recording studio was filmed at Electric Lady Studios
. Some scenes were shot on a sound stage
in a studio in Brooklyn.
The cast did many rehearsals, including on-location rehearsals, which Dennings described as "the most practical thing I've ever heard of". During the course of filming, the actors slept during the day, woke in the afternoon, had their make-up applied on set, and filmed from dusk until dawn. The cast and crew members would often sit inside the The Jerk-Offs' van between takes to avoid the cold, and sometimes stayed inside, out of sight, while scenes were being filmed in the van. Reshoots of the film began in May 2008; the film had originally begun at The Jerk-Offs' show where Nick and Norah first meet, and all prior scenes were written in later. Editor Myron Kerstein cut some of the shots on set due to time and budgetary restraints.
gives the film a score of 72% based on 167 reviews, with an average
score of 6.5/10.
At Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 64% based on 32 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Claudia Puig of USA Today
gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, praising Denning's on-screen presence, the "considerable chemistry" between Cera and Dennings, and the "excellent" soundtrack.
The New York Times
critic A. O. Scott
described Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist as a "shy, sweet romance" that "surveys the varieties of teenage experience with tolerant sympathy".
James Berardinelli
of ReelViews reviewed the film warmly with 3 out of 4 stars, complimenting the soundtrack, the "witty" dialog and the appeal of the film to both adults and teenagers.
Michael Ordona wrote for the Los Angeles Times
that the film is familiar, but is "fleshed out with atmosphere, a nice blend of broad goofiness and sophistication, and two appealing leads who bring it to life".
Entertainment Weekly
s Lisa Schwarzbaum graded the film as an A–, giving particular commendation to its nonchalant portrayal of gay teenagers and Norah's Jewish identity.
Richard Corliss of Time
magazine opined that the film was "smart, sweet, [and] bordering-on-adorable" while the title characters were "worth watching, admiring and cuddling up to".
Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
wrote that Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist "doesn't bring much to the party. [...] It's not much of a film, but it sort of gets you halfway there, like a Yugo."
Rolling Stone
s Peter Travers
gave the film 2 out of 4 stars, saying, "I'm yawning just writing this. [...] Sollett, hoping for a Before Sunrise
/Before Sunset
vibe, sadly settles for a soggy aftertaste."
In a review for The Village Voice
, Robert Wilonsky likened the film to "something crafted in a lab by 54-year-old hucksters trying to sell shit to the kids under the cheerless guise of 'alternative.' The only thing it's an alternative to? Good."
Variety
magazine's John Anderson described it as a "sparsely plotted comedy" that is "sweet, no doubt, but a bit too slick for its own good".
. It was released theatrically in the United States on October 3, 2008, grossing US$
11,311,751 from 2,421 screens on its debut weekend, placing third in the box office rankings. The following weekend, it grossed $6,420,474 with a per-screen average of $2,652 and a cumulative gross of $20,730,708, ranking fifth. It earned another $3,693,384 on its third weekend with a per-screen average of $1,648 and a cumulative gross of $26,500,875, dropping to eighth place. The film ended its theatrical run with a total domestic gross of $31,487,293 and a foreign gross of $2,018,844, giving a worldwide total of $33,506,137. It placed 92nd for the highest-grossing films of 2008 and 85th for the year's highest-grossing opening weekends.
The film was screened at the London Film Festival
in October 2008 and at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema
in March 2009.
The film was also nominated at the GLAAD Media Awards
in the category of Outstanding Film – Wide Release, and Kat Dennings was nominated for an MTV Movie Award
for Best Breakthrough Performance – Female
.
The film's supervising music editor Andrew Dorfman was nominated for a Golden Reel Award by the Motion Picture Sound Editors
for Best Sound Editing – Music in a Feature Film, but did not win.
and Blu-ray
in North America on February 3, 2009. The disc includes: one audio commentary
with Peter Sollett, Michael Cera, Kat Dennings and Ari Graynor, and another with Sollett, Rachel Cohn, David Levithan, and Lorene Scafaria; the featurettes "A Nick and Norah Puppet Show by Kat Dennings" and "Ari Graynor's Video Diary: A Look Behind-the-Scenes"; a music video
for Bishop Allen
's song "Middle Management"; storyboard animations with optional audio commentary; a faux interview with Michael Cera, Kat Dennings and Eddie Kaye Thomas; deleted scene
s; outtake
s; and a photo gallery. The film is currently playing on Starz (TV channel) in the United States.
and Green Day
, as did Scafaria's screenplay, which she originally submitted with a mix CD featuring her ideas for the film's soundtrack, including songs by The Black Keys
, Bloc Party
, and Frou Frou. In the final cut of the film, however, most of the music was chosen by Sollett, editor Myron Kerstein and music supervisor Linda Cohen. Sollett said that he "got lucky" with the songs that he was able to choose because, within the financiers and the studio, "there was nobody in that group who knew all that much about music or the music that we had in the film". His objective when selecting the music was to find "the best music you haven't heard yet", primarily from bands based in New York City. While filming in New York, he emailed songs "right out of my iTunes
[library]" which he thought would suit particular scenes to Kerstein, who was in Los Angeles
assembling the film as it was shot.
Romantic comedy film
Romantic comedy films are films with light-hearted, humorous plotlines, centered on romantic ideals such as that true love is able to surmount most obstacles. One dictionary definition is "a funny movie, play, or television program about a love story that ends happily"...
directed by Peter Sollett
Peter Sollett
Peter Sollett is an American film director and screenwriter known for his feature films Raising Victor Vargas and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist .-Career:...
and starring Michael Cera
Michael Cera
Michael Austin Cera is a Canadian actor best known for his roles in Arrested Development, Youth in Revolt, Superbad, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Juno. Cera received the 2008 Canadian Comedy Award for best male performance for his work in Superbad.-Early...
and Kat Dennings
Kat Dennings
Katherine Litwack , better known by the stage name Kat Dennings, is an American actress. Emerging with a role in an episode of the HBO dramedy series Sex and the City, Dennings has since appeared in the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Big Momma's House 2, Charlie Bartlett, Raise Your Voice, The House...
. Written by Lorene Scafaria
Lorene Scafaria
Lorene Scafaria is an American screenwriter, playwright, actor and singer best known for her work on the 2008 film Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.-Early life:...
and based on the novel of the same name by Rachel Cohn
Rachel Cohn
Rachel Cohn is a young adult fiction author. Her first book, Gingerbread, was published in 2002...
and David Levithan
David Levithan
David Levithan is an American young-adult fiction editor and award-winning author. His first book, Boy Meets Boy, was published in 2003...
, the story tells of teenagers Nick (Cera) and Norah (Dennings), who meet when Norah asks Nick to pretend to be her boyfriend for five minutes. Over the course of the night, together they try to find their favorite band's secret show and search for Norah's drunken best friend.
The film came into development in 2003 when producer Kerry Kohansky Roberts
Kerry Kohansky Roberts
Kerry Kohansky Roberts is an American film producer best known for her work on the 2008 film Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.-Career:...
found Cohn and Levithan's novel and decided to adapt it for film. Scafaria was hired to write the script in 2005, and Sollett signed on to direct the film in 2006. Principal photography took place over 29 days from October to December 2007, primarily in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
and Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. During the course of filming, the cast and crew slept during the day and filmed from dusk to dawn.
The film premiered on September 6, 2008 at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival
2008 Toronto International Film Festival
The 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This 33rd annual festival was from September 4 to September 13, 2008...
and was released theatrically on October 3, 2008. It tripled its US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
10 million budget with a total gross of US$33.5 million. An accompanying soundtrack was released on September 23, 2008, and the film was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
on February 3, 2009. It attracted generally positive reviews from critics and received nominations for three Satellite Awards, one GLAAD Media Award
GLAAD Media Awards
The GLAAD Media Award is an accolade bestowed by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to recognize and honor various branches of the media for their outstanding representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and the issues that affect their lives...
, one MTV Movie Award
MTV Movie Awards
The MTV Movie Awards is a film awards show presented annually on MTV . It also contains movie parodies that used official movie footage with hosts and other celebrities and music performances. The nominees are decided by producers and executives at MTV. Winners are decided online by the general...
and one Golden Reel Award
Motion Picture Sound Editors
Founded in 1953, Motion Picture Sound Editors is an honorary society of motion picture sound editors. The society's goals are to educate others about and increase the recognition of the sound editors, show the artistic merit of the soundtracks, and improve the professional relationship of its...
.
Plot
A straight bass playerBass Player
Bass player can refer to:*Bass Player , an album by Rhombus*Bass Player , a magazine for bassists*Bassist, or bass player, a musician who plays the bass guitar...
in an "all gay band" called The Jerk-Offs, Nick O'Leary (Michael Cera
Michael Cera
Michael Austin Cera is a Canadian actor best known for his roles in Arrested Development, Youth in Revolt, Superbad, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Juno. Cera received the 2008 Canadian Comedy Award for best male performance for his work in Superbad.-Early...
), a teenager from Hoboken
Hoboken, New Jersey
Hoboken is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population was 50,005. The city is part of the New York metropolitan area and contains Hoboken Terminal, a major transportation hub for the region...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, is heartbroken after his girlfriend, Tris (Alexis Dziena
Alexis Dziena
-Early life :Dziena was born in New York City of Irish, Italian and Polish descent. She attended the private Saint Ann's School alongside her Bringing Rain costar, Paz de la Huerta. She spent many of her summers growing up in the small South Jersey shore town of Sea Isle City...
), breaks up with him, and continues to make her "breakup" mix CDs. Thom (Aaron Yoo
Aaron Yoo
-Personal life:Aaron Yoo was born in East Brunswick Township, New Jersey to Korean parents. He has an older sister. He played the cello for the East Brunswick High School orchestra and ran track...
) and Dev (Rafi Gavron
Rafi Gavron
Raphael Pichey "Rafi" Gavron is a British actor, known for his roles in the Anthony Minghella romantic-drama film Breaking and Entering , and the 2008 movies Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and the fantasy Inkheart....
), his gay bandmates, who all hate Tris, convince him to perform at a club because his favorite band—the legendary, publicity-shy indie band "Where's Fluffy"—is performing somewhere in New York City that night. Norah Silverberg (Kat Dennings
Kat Dennings
Katherine Litwack , better known by the stage name Kat Dennings, is an American actress. Emerging with a role in an episode of the HBO dramedy series Sex and the City, Dennings has since appeared in the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Big Momma's House 2, Charlie Bartlett, Raise Your Voice, The House...
) attends the same high school as Tris, Convent of the Sacred Heart
Convent of the Sacred Heart (New York)
The Convent of the Sacred Heart is a Roman Catholic all-girl school in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Teaching grades from pre-kindergarten through twelve, it is located on Manhattan's Upper East Side at East 91st Street and Fifth Avenue....
and though Norah and Tris dislike each other, they have a mutual friend named Caroline (Ari Graynor
Ari Graynor
Ariel Geltman Graynor, better known as Ari Graynor, is an American actress.-Life and career:Graynor was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She was raised in a Jewish family and attended Buckingham Browne & Nichols, a private school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Trinity College, in Hartford,...
). Norah, who shares Nick's taste in music, has been recovering his mix CDs after Tris discards them in the trash. That night, the three girls end up at Arlene's Grocery
Arlene's Grocery
Arlene's Grocery is a bar and music venue in the Lower East Side, Manhattan. It is located at 95 Stanton Street, and has been a bar/venue since 1996....
on Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
's Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
, where The Jerk-Offs are playing. Norah asks Nick to pretend to be her boyfriend to show up Tris. Norah kisses him, unaware that he is Tris' ex-boyfriend. Caroline gets drunk and Norah wants to take her home, but Nick's bandmates - who see Norah as a potential new girlfriend for him - offer to take Caroline home so Norah and Nick can spend time together trying to find the show.
After a confused Caroline escapes from Thom's van, Nick and Norah meet up again with Thom and Dev to try to find her. They first visit a club where Where's Fluffy? are rumored to be playing, but with no success. Tris, eager to win back Nick, follows them and gets a phone call from Caroline, who tells Norah that she has "found Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
" and an altar boy without pants. They find a drunk Caroline on stage at a gay cabaret dressed as a Christmas tree. When they arrive at Nick's car, Tris is sitting on the hood waiting for him. Before Nick leaves to go to talk to her, Norah tells him how nice it was to meet him, but he leaves without a response. An upset Norah meets up at a club with her friend with benefits
Friends with benefits
Friends with benefits may refer to:* A casual relationship is a term used to describe the physical and emotional relationship between two unmarried people who engage in uncommitted sex acts....
, Tal (Jay Baruchel
Jay Baruchel
Jonathan Adam Saunders "Jay" Baruchel is a Canadian actor. He has had a successful career in comedy films, and has appeared in supporting roles in such box office successes as Million Dollar Baby, Knocked Up and Tropic Thunder, as well as starring in films like She's Out of My League, The Trotsky,...
), but soon realizes that he has an ulterior motive and hopes to get a deal for his band with Norah's father, a record producer (Richard Waddingham). She agrees to pay for Tal and his friends' drinks, but she tells the waitress to increase the tab because there was a miscalculation, and she leaves him to pay. Nick, meanwhile, decides to confront Tris, but she tells him she wants to be together again and asks for a ride home. Tris asks Nick to stop by the river, where she tries to seduce him. Whilst she seductively dances in front of the car, Nick reminisces fondly about Norah and the night's events and drives away, leaving Tris behind.
Nick calls Norah, apologizing for leaving, and she agrees to meet him again. Deciding to go somewhere where no one they know will find them, they arrive at Electric Lady Studios
Electric Lady Studios
Electric Lady Studios, at 52 West 8th Street, in New York City's Greenwich Village, is a recording studio originally built by Jimi Hendrix and designed by John Storyk in 1970...
, a music studio owned by Norah's father. Once there, Norah gets Nick to play something he wrote in the studio, but then joins him in the recording room. Inside, they kiss and it is implied that Nick fingers
Fingering (sexual act)
Fingering is the manual manipulation of the clitoris, vulva, vagina, or anus for the purpose of sexual arousal and stimulation. It may constitute the entire sexual encounter or it may be part of mutual masturbation, foreplay or other sexual activities. To "finger oneself" is to masturbate in this...
her to orgasm. Norah gets a text message from Caroline telling her where she found Where's Fluffy? playing. When they arrive at the show, they meet Tris, who cannot understand why Nick will not take her back, and Tal, who wants the same answer from Norah. Tal starts a fight with Nick, but Thom and Dev's friend, Lethario (Jonathan B. Wright
Jonathan B. Wright
Jonathan Bradford Wright is an American actor who is best known for his performance as Hanschen, in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Spring Awakening.-Life and career:...
), steps in and headbutt
Headbutt
A headbutt is a strike with the head, typically involving the use of robust parts of the cranium as areas of impact. Effective headbutting revolves around striking a sensitive area with a less sensitive area, such as striking the nose of an opponent with the forehead...
s Tal. Nick and Norah share a smile and leave together. At Pennsylvania Station
Pennsylvania Station (New York City)
Pennsylvania Station—commonly known as Penn Station—is the major intercity train station and a major commuter rail hub in New York City. It is one of the busiest rail stations in the world, and a hub for inbound and outbound railroad traffic in New York City. The New York City Subway system also...
, Nick admits that he does not care about missing the concert, and they kiss on the escalator as the sun rises over New York City.
Cast
- Michael CeraMichael CeraMichael Austin Cera is a Canadian actor best known for his roles in Arrested Development, Youth in Revolt, Superbad, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Juno. Cera received the 2008 Canadian Comedy Award for best male performance for his work in Superbad.-Early...
plays Nick O'Leary, the "straight bass player in a gay band" teenager who is heartbroken after his girlfriend breaks up with him. Cera was the first actor to be cast after being recommended to Sollett by producer Kerry Kohansky RobertsKerry Kohansky RobertsKerry Kohansky Roberts is an American film producer best known for her work on the 2008 film Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.-Career:...
based on his performance in Arrested Development. Sollett called him a "genius" and a "terrific actor", as well as a "brilliant improvisational comedian". Cera, who had previously taken improvisation classes, said that "It's fun [to improvise], just having a conversation. It always feels real because it is real." He lived in an apartment in New York's East VillageEast Village, ManhattanThe East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
for the duration of filming. He had never driven a stick shiftManual transmissionA manual transmission, also known as a manual gearbox or standard transmission is a type of transmission used in motor vehicle applications...
vehicle before filming, and was taught so that he could be shot driving Nick's YugoZastava KoralThe Zastava Koral , also known simply as the Yugo, was a subcompact car built by the Zastava corporation. The first Yugo 45 was handmade on 2 October 1978....
. - Kat DenningsKat DenningsKatherine Litwack , better known by the stage name Kat Dennings, is an American actress. Emerging with a role in an episode of the HBO dramedy series Sex and the City, Dennings has since appeared in the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Big Momma's House 2, Charlie Bartlett, Raise Your Voice, The House...
plays Norah Silverberg, the teenage daughter of a wealthy record producerRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
who shares Nick's passion for music. Dennings was the second actor to be cast (Cera having been first), Sollett saying that "her being liberated from [people's expectations] liberated the film in many ways, and certainly her character from cliché." Dennings felt that she related to Norah more than any other she had played before and "wanted to make sure she was really fleshed out". Her favorite day of shooting was with a group of drag queenDrag queenA drag queen is a man who dresses, and usually acts, like a caricature woman often for the purpose of entertaining. There are many kinds of drag artists and they vary greatly, from professionals who have starred in films to people who just try it once. Drag queens also vary by class and culture and...
s at a gay cabaret, but she said that filming Norah's first orgasm was "really uncomfortable... Really, really." - Ari GraynorAri GraynorAriel Geltman Graynor, better known as Ari Graynor, is an American actress.-Life and career:Graynor was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She was raised in a Jewish family and attended Buckingham Browne & Nichols, a private school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Trinity College, in Hartford,...
plays Caroline, Norah's alcoholic best friend. Graynor auditioned for the roles of both Norah and Caroline, and was chosen to play Caroline, which she says rescued her from "one of those horrible actor black holes of really thinking that I'd probably never work again". Graynor related to both characters, saying that "I've had many nights as Caroline. And I've had many nights as Norah, taking care of Caroline." Sollett claimed that "everything she did in the movie was her own invention", calling her improvisation "brilliant". She improvised an entire scene taking place at the Port Authority Bus Station in which Caroline talks to a stranger and which was not part of the script. When Caroline vomitsVomitingVomiting is the forceful expulsion of the contents of one's stomach through the mouth and sometimes the nose...
, Graynor held a mixture of ginger aleGinger aleGinger ale is a carbonated soft drink flavored with ginger. Dr. Thomas Cantrell, an American apothecary and surgeon, claimed to have invented ginger ale and marketed it with beverage manufacturer Grattan and Company. Grattan embossed the slogan "The Original Makers of Ginger Ale" on its bottles...
and ginger cookie in her mouth which she spat into a toilet and a bag. - Alexis DzienaAlexis Dziena-Early life :Dziena was born in New York City of Irish, Italian and Polish descent. She attended the private Saint Ann's School alongside her Bringing Rain costar, Paz de la Huerta. She spent many of her summers growing up in the small South Jersey shore town of Sea Isle City...
plays Tris, Nick's unfaithful ex-girlfriend who attends school with Norah and Caroline. Dziena was one of the first actors cast, having done her final read-through audition with Cera, Dennings, and Graynor. She said that the filming period was "a really fantastic time", but complained about the night shoots and having to sleep through the day: "Oh, it's terrible. ... I'm okay as long as the sun's not up when I'm going to sleep but sleeping during the day is rough." - Aaron YooAaron Yoo-Personal life:Aaron Yoo was born in East Brunswick Township, New Jersey to Korean parents. He has an older sister. He played the cello for the East Brunswick High School orchestra and ran track...
plays Thom, Nick's friend and the guitarist for The Jerk-Offs. Yoo was supposed to mime playing the guitar when filming The Jerk-Offs' concert, but requested that he be taught the chords to play when he had spare time. He found it very difficult to drive the van featured in the film and jokingly referred to it as a "tank" and a "World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
veteran". - Rafi GavronRafi GavronRaphael Pichey "Rafi" Gavron is a British actor, known for his roles in the Anthony Minghella romantic-drama film Breaking and Entering , and the 2008 movies Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and the fantasy Inkheart....
plays Dev, Nick's friend and the lead singer of The Jerk-Offs. Gavron recorded a song performed by The Jerk-Offs in the film at Electric Lady StudiosElectric Lady StudiosElectric Lady Studios, at 52 West 8th Street, in New York City's Greenwich Village, is a recording studio originally built by Jimi Hendrix and designed by John Storyk in 1970...
, where part of the story takes place. Filming The Jerk-Offs' concert at Don Hill's in New York, the owner of the bar, Don Hill, mistook Gavron for a professional musician in spite of Gavron's calling himself a "useless singer". - Jay BaruchelJay BaruchelJonathan Adam Saunders "Jay" Baruchel is a Canadian actor. He has had a successful career in comedy films, and has appeared in supporting roles in such box office successes as Million Dollar Baby, Knocked Up and Tropic Thunder, as well as starring in films like She's Out of My League, The Trotsky,...
plays Tal, Norah's "friend with benefitsFriends with benefitsFriends with benefits may refer to:* A casual relationship is a term used to describe the physical and emotional relationship between two unmarried people who engage in uncommitted sex acts....
" and an amateur musician. Baruchel said that the film was "by far the hippest movie I've ever been in—that's for damn sure". - Jonathan B. WrightJonathan B. WrightJonathan Bradford Wright is an American actor who is best known for his performance as Hanschen, in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Spring Awakening.-Life and career:...
as Lethario, a friend of Thom and Dev. - Rachel CohnRachel CohnRachel Cohn is a young adult fiction author. Her first book, Gingerbread, was published in 2002...
and David LevithanDavid LevithanDavid Levithan is an American young-adult fiction editor and award-winning author. His first book, Boy Meets Boy, was published in 2003...
, authors of the same-titled novel on which the film is based, cameoCameo appearanceA cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
as a couple sitting behind Nick and Norah at a diner. - Eddie Kaye ThomasEddie Kaye ThomasEddie Kaye Thomas is an American film, television, and stage actor who rose to prominence in 1999 as Paul Finch in the American Pie film series.-Early life:Thomas was born in Staten Island, NY...
, Graynor's boyfriend, cameos as Jesus in a gay cabaret - Devendra BanhartDevendra BanhartDevendra Obi Banhart is a singer-songwriter and visual artist. Banhart was born in Houston, Texas and was raised by his mother in Venezuela, until he moved to California as a teenager. He began to study at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1998, but dropped out to perform music in Europe, San...
, John ChoJohn ChoJohn Yohan Cho is an American actor and musician, best known for his roles in the American Pie films and the Harold & Kumar films . He also starred in the critically acclaimed hit film Better Luck Tomorrow...
, Seth MeyersSeth MeyersSeth Adam Meyers is an American actor and comedian. He currently serves as head writer for Saturday Night Live and hosts its news parody segment Weekend Update.-Early life:...
, and Andy SambergAndy SambergDavid Andrew "Andy" Samberg is an American actor, comedian, rapper and writer best known as a member of the comedy group The Lonely Island and as a cast member on Saturday Night Live...
are also featured. - Kevin CorriganKevin CorriganKevin Fitzgerald Corrigan is an American actor who has appeared mostly in independent films and television since the 1990s.-Life and career:Corrigan was born in The Bronx, New York to an Irish-American father and a Puerto Rican mother...
agreed to cameo so long as he had no speaking lines; his scene, which was not scripted, was entirely improvised by Graynor.
Writing
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist was originally the novel written by Rachel CohnRachel Cohn
Rachel Cohn is a young adult fiction author. Her first book, Gingerbread, was published in 2002...
and David Levithan
David Levithan
David Levithan is an American young-adult fiction editor and award-winning author. His first book, Boy Meets Boy, was published in 2003...
, which producer Kerry Kohansky Roberts
Kerry Kohansky Roberts
Kerry Kohansky Roberts is an American film producer best known for her work on the 2008 film Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.-Career:...
brought into development as a film in 2003. Lorene Scafaria
Lorene Scafaria
Lorene Scafaria is an American screenwriter, playwright, actor and singer best known for her work on the 2008 film Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.-Early life:...
was hired by Roberts in early 2005 to adapt the novel for Chris
Chris Weitz
Christopher John "Chris" Weitz is an American producer, writer, director and actor. He is best known for his work with his brother, Paul Weitz, on the comedy films American Pie and About a Boy, as well as directing the film adaptation of the novel The Golden Compass and the film adaptation of New...
and Paul Weitz
Paul Weitz (filmmaker)
Paul John Weitz is an American film producer, screenwriter, actor, and film director.-Personal life:Weitz was born in New York City, New York, the son of the actress Susan Kohner and novelist/fashion designer John Weitz, and the grandson of producer Paul Kohner and Mexican actress Lupita...
and Focus Features
Focus Features
Focus Features is the art house films division of NBC Universal's Universal Pictures, and acts as both a producer and distributor for its own films and a distributor for foreign films....
; the script was her first film adaptation
Film adaptation
Film adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even...
. Peter Sollett
Peter Sollett
Peter Sollett is an American film director and screenwriter known for his feature films Raising Victor Vargas and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist .-Career:...
signed on to direct the film in 2006, when the script was in its second draft, and collaborated with Scafaria. Scafaria said that Norah "was me on the page", while Sollett felt that as a teenager he was "not dissimilar to Nick". Both had similar experiences to Nick and Norah, commuting into Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
at night, Scafaria from New Jersey and Sollett from Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...
.
Cohn and Levithan had written the novel in alternating chapters: Cohn wrote every second chapter from Norah's perspective and Levithan wrote every other chapter from Nick's perspective. Cera and Dennings recorded voice-over
Voice-over
Voice-over is a production technique where a voice which is not part of the narrative is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations...
narration to mimic the first-person
First-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
perspective from which the novel is written, but the voice-overs were not included in the final cut of the film. Scafaria says that the differences between the novel and the film were "to make it a little more cinematic". She said that Nick and Norah's parents were written out of the script "to absorb what it's like to be young, [because] you're not thinking about your parents when you're out all night". In addition to searching for Where's Fluffy?, Sollett felt that the film needed a second MacGuffin
MacGuffin
A MacGuffin is "a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction". The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is...
to propel the story forwards, so Norah's best friend Caroline got drunk and then lost, giving Nick and Norah an additional objective.
The characters' names are inspired by Dashiell Hammett
Dashiell Hammett
Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories, and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade , Nick and Nora Charles , and the Continental Op .In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on...
's characters, Nick and Nora Charles
Nick and Nora Charles
Nick and Nora Charles are fictional characters created by Dashiell Hammett in his novel The Thin Man. The characters were later adapted for film in a series of movies between 1934 and 1947; for radio from 1941 to 1950; for television from 1957 through 1959; as a Broadway musical in 1991; and as a...
.
Filming
Shooting on a budget of US$United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
10 million, principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist took place from late October to early December 2007. The film was shot over 29 days in one-week blocks, and was one of the first to receive a filming subsidy from the state of New York under the "Made in NY" incentive program. Filming took place mainly in Manhattan's East Village
East Village, Manhattan
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
and Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
, as well as Williamsburg
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordering Greenpoint to the north, Bedford-Stuyvesant to the south, Bushwick to the east and the East River to the west. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 1. The neighborhood is served by the NYPD's 90th ...
, Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
. Filming locations included Katz's Delicatessen, Mercury Lounge
Mercury Lounge
The Mercury Lounge is a club/music venue, in the Lower East Side section, of New York City. The structure, at 217 East Houston Street, housed the servants to the Astor Mansion, connected to it by an underground labyrinth of tunnels...
, Arlene's Grocery
Arlene's Grocery
Arlene's Grocery is a bar and music venue in the Lower East Side, Manhattan. It is located at 95 Stanton Street, and has been a bar/venue since 1996....
, Pennsylvania Station
Pennsylvania Station (New York City)
Pennsylvania Station—commonly known as Penn Station—is the major intercity train station and a major commuter rail hub in New York City. It is one of the busiest rail stations in the world, and a hub for inbound and outbound railroad traffic in New York City. The New York City Subway system also...
, Port Authority Bus Terminal
Port Authority Bus Terminal
The Port Authority Bus Terminal is the main gateway for interstate buses into Manhattan in New York City...
, the Veselka restaurant and Don Hill's bar. Union Pool, a bar in Brooklyn, was also used for filming but requested to be called "Brooklyn Pool" in the film, and Norah's father's recording studio was filmed at Electric Lady Studios
Electric Lady Studios
Electric Lady Studios, at 52 West 8th Street, in New York City's Greenwich Village, is a recording studio originally built by Jimi Hendrix and designed by John Storyk in 1970...
. Some scenes were shot on a sound stage
Sound stage
In common usage, a sound stage is a soundproof, hangar-like structure, building, or room, used for the production of theatrical filmmaking and television production, usually located on a secure movie studio property.-Overview:...
in a studio in Brooklyn.
The cast did many rehearsals, including on-location rehearsals, which Dennings described as "the most practical thing I've ever heard of". During the course of filming, the actors slept during the day, woke in the afternoon, had their make-up applied on set, and filmed from dusk until dawn. The cast and crew members would often sit inside the The Jerk-Offs' van between takes to avoid the cold, and sometimes stayed inside, out of sight, while scenes were being filmed in the van. Reshoots of the film began in May 2008; the film had originally begun at The Jerk-Offs' show where Nick and Norah first meet, and all prior scenes were written in later. Editor Myron Kerstein cut some of the shots on set due to time and budgetary restraints.
Critical response
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
gives the film a score of 72% based on 167 reviews, with an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 6.5/10.
At Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 64% based on 32 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Claudia Puig of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, praising Denning's on-screen presence, the "considerable chemistry" between Cera and Dennings, and the "excellent" soundtrack.
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
critic A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
described Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist as a "shy, sweet romance" that "surveys the varieties of teenage experience with tolerant sympathy".
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
of ReelViews reviewed the film warmly with 3 out of 4 stars, complimenting the soundtrack, the "witty" dialog and the appeal of the film to both adults and teenagers.
Michael Ordona wrote for the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
that the film is familiar, but is "fleshed out with atmosphere, a nice blend of broad goofiness and sophistication, and two appealing leads who bring it to life".
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
s Lisa Schwarzbaum graded the film as an A–, giving particular commendation to its nonchalant portrayal of gay teenagers and Norah's Jewish identity.
Richard Corliss of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine opined that the film was "smart, sweet, [and] bordering-on-adorable" while the title characters were "worth watching, admiring and cuddling up to".
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
wrote that Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist "doesn't bring much to the party. [...] It's not much of a film, but it sort of gets you halfway there, like a Yugo."
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
s Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
gave the film 2 out of 4 stars, saying, "I'm yawning just writing this. [...] Sollett, hoping for a Before Sunrise
Before Sunrise
Before Sunrise is a 1995 romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater and written by Linklater and Kim Krizan. The film follows Jesse , a young American, and Céline , a young French woman, who meet on a train and disembark in Vienna, where they spend the night walking around the city and...
/Before Sunset
Before Sunset
Before Sunset is a 2004 American romantic drama film and the sequel to Before Sunrise . Like its predecessor, the film was directed by Richard Linklater. However, this time Linklater shares screenplay credit with both actors from the movies, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy...
vibe, sadly settles for a soggy aftertaste."
In a review for The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, Robert Wilonsky likened the film to "something crafted in a lab by 54-year-old hucksters trying to sell shit to the kids under the cheerless guise of 'alternative.' The only thing it's an alternative to? Good."
Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
magazine's John Anderson described it as a "sparsely plotted comedy" that is "sweet, no doubt, but a bit too slick for its own good".
Box office
The world premiere of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist was held on September 6, 2008 at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival2008 Toronto International Film Festival
The 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This 33rd annual festival was from September 4 to September 13, 2008...
. It was released theatrically in the United States on October 3, 2008, grossing US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
11,311,751 from 2,421 screens on its debut weekend, placing third in the box office rankings. The following weekend, it grossed $6,420,474 with a per-screen average of $2,652 and a cumulative gross of $20,730,708, ranking fifth. It earned another $3,693,384 on its third weekend with a per-screen average of $1,648 and a cumulative gross of $26,500,875, dropping to eighth place. The film ended its theatrical run with a total domestic gross of $31,487,293 and a foreign gross of $2,018,844, giving a worldwide total of $33,506,137. It placed 92nd for the highest-grossing films of 2008 and 85th for the year's highest-grossing opening weekends.
The film was screened at the London Film Festival
London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is the UK's largest public film event, screening more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts from almost 50 countries. The festival, , currently in its 54th year, is run every year in the second half of October under the umbrella of the British Film Institute...
in October 2008 and at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema
Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema
The Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente is an international festival of independent films organized each year in the month of April, in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina.The festival is managed by the Ministerio de Cultura del Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, it is not...
in March 2009.
Award nominations
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist was nominated for three Satellite Awards, in the categories of Best Film – Musical or Comedy, Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Michael Cera), Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (Kat Dennings), but failed to win any.The film was also nominated at the GLAAD Media Awards
GLAAD Media Awards
The GLAAD Media Award is an accolade bestowed by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to recognize and honor various branches of the media for their outstanding representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and the issues that affect their lives...
in the category of Outstanding Film – Wide Release, and Kat Dennings was nominated for an MTV Movie Award
MTV Movie Awards
The MTV Movie Awards is a film awards show presented annually on MTV . It also contains movie parodies that used official movie footage with hosts and other celebrities and music performances. The nominees are decided by producers and executives at MTV. Winners are decided online by the general...
for Best Breakthrough Performance – Female
MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance
This is a following list of the MTV Movie Award winners and nominees for Best Breakthrough Performance. In many years, the awards were split into Male and Female categories...
.
The film's supervising music editor Andrew Dorfman was nominated for a Golden Reel Award by the Motion Picture Sound Editors
Motion Picture Sound Editors
Founded in 1953, Motion Picture Sound Editors is an honorary society of motion picture sound editors. The society's goals are to educate others about and increase the recognition of the sound editors, show the artistic merit of the soundtracks, and improve the professional relationship of its...
for Best Sound Editing – Music in a Feature Film, but did not win.
Home media
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist was released on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
in North America on February 3, 2009. The disc includes: one audio commentary
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
with Peter Sollett, Michael Cera, Kat Dennings and Ari Graynor, and another with Sollett, Rachel Cohn, David Levithan, and Lorene Scafaria; the featurettes "A Nick and Norah Puppet Show by Kat Dennings" and "Ari Graynor's Video Diary: A Look Behind-the-Scenes"; a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
for Bishop Allen
Bishop Allen
Bishop Allen is an American indie rock band from Brooklyn, New York. The band's core members are Justin Rice and Christian Rudder, who are supported both on stage and in the studio by a rotating cast of musical collaborators...
's song "Middle Management"; storyboard animations with optional audio commentary; a faux interview with Michael Cera, Kat Dennings and Eddie Kaye Thomas; deleted scene
Deleted scene
In Entertainment, especially the film and television industry, Deleted scenes are parts of a film removed or censored from or replaced by another scene in the final "cut", or version, of a film...
s; outtake
Outtake
An outtake is a portion of a work that is removed in the editing process and not included in the work's final, publicly released version. In the digital era, significant outtakes have been appended to CD and DVD reissues of many albums and films as bonus tracks or features, in film often, but not...
s; and a photo gallery. The film is currently playing on Starz (TV channel) in the United States.
Soundtrack
Cohn and Levithan's novel contained many musical references, including songs by The CureThe Cure
The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1976. The band has experienced several line-up changes, with frontman, vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter Robert Smith being the only constant member...
and Green Day
Green Day
Green Day is an American punk rock band formed in 1987. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool...
, as did Scafaria's screenplay, which she originally submitted with a mix CD featuring her ideas for the film's soundtrack, including songs by The Black Keys
The Black Keys
The Black Keys are an American rock duo consisting of vocalist/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer/producer Patrick Carney. The band was formed in Akron, Ohio, in 2001. As of October 2011, the band has sold over 2 million albums in the U.S....
, Bloc Party
Bloc Party
Bloc Party are a British Indie rock band, composed of Kele Okereke , Russell Lissack , Gordon Moakes , and Matt Tong...
, and Frou Frou. In the final cut of the film, however, most of the music was chosen by Sollett, editor Myron Kerstein and music supervisor Linda Cohen. Sollett said that he "got lucky" with the songs that he was able to choose because, within the financiers and the studio, "there was nobody in that group who knew all that much about music or the music that we had in the film". His objective when selecting the music was to find "the best music you haven't heard yet", primarily from bands based in New York City. While filming in New York, he emailed songs "right out of my iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
[library]" which he thought would suit particular scenes to Kerstein, who was in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
assembling the film as it was shot.