Weekly Review -- Romance crescendo

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008) -- With many romantic comedies being a dime a dozen, here comes Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, a film that is just as vividly honest as its dialogues are crisp and characters relatable. Heartbroken Nick (Michael Cera) keeps making lovingly obsessive CD mixes for his shallow ex Tris (Alexis Dziena). All the while, Tris is routinely chucking the disks into the nearest garbage bin, but a girl named Norah (Kat Dennings) is routinely picking them up, the songs collected winning her heart one by one. Incidentally, she meets Nick one night, and the two embark on a music-filled odyssey through New York's nighttime. Contrary to many recent contrived romcoms, this movie has a huge heart, which it keeps sharing with the audience. Cera's lovable nerd persona serves him well in the role of smitten Nick, while Dennings is a vision of enchanting vulnerability, capped by an edgy facade throughout the proceedings. The charm of the movie lies in its details, those tiny quirks and unexpected pleasures that make the characters human and their actions understandable, as well as occasionally clumsy. It does not try to present its coming-of-age characters as perfect, since it is aware that life is never such; rather, it regards the characters and their timely dilemmas with genuine respect, always laughing with and never at them. The music and the city that never sleeps are the two entities essential to this melodic affair, providing the perfect background for the unconventional fairytale. From its endearing look at New York's alternative music scene to its observant look at romance, from its lively writing to its vibrant color palette, and from employing narrative devices from handwipes -- oh, yes, you read it correctly -- to iPods, this playlist is sweet music to the ears.

8/10