In 'Playlist,' Echoes of Teen Angst We've Grown to Love

Like the mix CDs that obsess its main characters, "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist" builds into something of infectious, albeit modest, joy. This night-in-the-life romantic comedy stars Michael Cera and Kat Dennings as the title characters, high school students who share rarefied tastes in music but have wildly different temperaments. Nick is still stuck on his shallow ex-girlfriend Tris (Alexis Dziena), who routinely throws out the mix CDs he moodily labors over. Her school-mate Norah has been surreptitiously listening to them, and developing a music-inspired crush on Nick, whom she's never met.

That changes on the night over which the movie transpires, when Nick, Norah and their posses travel separately from suburban New Jersey to Manhattan's Lower East Side, in search of a secret show where the cult band Where's Fluffy? is scheduled to perform. Norah is instantly smitten when she sees Nick performing with his band (the name of which should not be repeated in a family newspaper). When he moons over Tris, she can't hide her disdain. "I could floss with that girl," she half-purrs, half-growls.

Dennings's deadpan delivery of such lines accounts for much of "Nick & Norah's" low-key charm; her smoky lower register is the perfect counterpoint to Cera's wispy warble. As the two make their way through the smiles of a New York night -- contending with a drunken best friend, a skeevy sort-of ex-boyfriend and constant comment from a gay men's Greek chorus -- they bicker, confide, criticize and ultimately find true love, propelled by cuts from Band of Horses, We Are Scientists and Devendra Banhart (who has a cameo).

"Nick & Norah," which was adapted from a novel of the same name by screenwriter Lorene Scafaria and director Peter Sollett, combines the glib, name-dropping cool of indie darlings like "Juno" (Nick drives a Yugo, possibly the ultimate ironic automotive statement) with the antic, episodic structure of drunk-teen comedies like "Superbad." Come to think of it, Cera is essentially playing the same character he did in both those movies, and this one proves that it's time for him to retire the diffident, slightly ethereal persona.

And there are times when "Nick & Norah" strikes the wrong chord: Some of the set pieces feel forced (e.g., an improbably ungainly drag show), and a running gag involving a "shtick of gum" panders too heavily to the target audience's love of a good gross-out. But by the time the sun rises over a bleary Eighth Avenue, "Nick & Norah" will have won viewers over. It's an alt.romance, dedicated to the scratched-up, slightly warped B-side of love.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (90 minutes, at area theaters) is rated PG-13 for teen drinking, sexuality, profanity and crude behavior.