The Red Right Hand
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NICK AND NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST
Press Play

Director
Peter Sollett

Starring
Michael Cera
Kat Dennings

I hate Juno, I should think we all know that by now. I hated the fact that it was labelled 'this year's Little Miss Sunshine' - just for reference sake, anything branded this year's whatever is only going to be a poor comparison. Thankfully, the only real similarities between blowhard comedy Juno and this release is the scribbly-scrawly opening title sequence and the fact they cast Michael Cera... and that's it. Oh, it also has nothing to do with The Thin Man; the title characters seem to be the only reference (if you wanted to know).

Very loosely based on Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's novel of the same name, the story takes place one night in New York (1 point), in a similar sort of 'chance meeting' way that made Before Sunrise so compelling. Bassist, Nick [Cera] is dealing with a particularly emotional break-up with the stereotypically hot yet heartless cheating bitch, Tris [Alexis Dziena] and his sole reason for playing a gig with his band is the possibility of seeing illusive Indie group, Where's Fluffy? Shortly after playing his set Nick is approached by a stranger and pleaded with to pretend to be her boyfriend for five minutes. On introducing her beau to her friend we then realise that Nick has made out with Norah [Dennings], one of Tris' 'friends.' Cue lots of awkwardness and 'how do you know..' blah blah. Upon realising Norah's friend Caroline [Ari Graynor] has gotten completely blitzed and needs to get home, Nick offers to drive her. Seeing an opportunity to save their friend, Nick's fellow band mates offer to drop Caroline home, while Nick and Norah trawl the city for clues of where this terribly mysterious band may be playing. This is where the plot splits and subsequently, where the story starts to work. You see, I found this film so hard to get into; the opening five-or-ten minutes were a little painful and no matter how hard the script tried, I just did not care. Then Nick and Norah begin their journey around New York and it clicked. Granted, a lot of the setups (if not all of them) are incredibly unrealistic and require the audience to suspend disbelief for the most part - but effectively, so do most romantic comedies (see Highlighted Scene below).

I was debating whether or not to bring this up… to be honest, I still am. I don't like Michael Cera's acting; I get annoyed because he just plays the same bit over-and-over, that and the whole unsure geeky, genuinely nice-guy routine kind of irritates the piss out of me. Now, the point I don't particularly want to highlight is that on two or more occasions I have been compared to this fool. That's not a compliment. I don't care if it was meant to be, I didn't like it. So watching this film about a skinny bassist (yeah, I used to play bass in a band in high school) who drives a small car and doesn't have great confidence or self-esteem just made me shout, "Oh for fuck's sake!!" Having said that, Cera didn't piss me off as much as usual - I don't think I can explain why, I just didn't get as miffed by him. Then there was Kat Dennings. I like Dennings, she was surprisingly impressive in The 40 Year Old Virgin, London and Charlie Bartlett and the same goes here; she has that young Rose McGowan quality about her that makes her a very promising and under-rated lead. And that's the driving force, our two leads seemingly belong together, they get along, they disagree and argue, they share the same passions - it just works - and the awkward interactions and conversations about nothing in particular highlight that beautifully.

But I have to address the downsides. So, we have our pants opening and the incredibly unrealistic setups, anything else the film falls short on? Well, to be brutally honest, yes, quite a bit. I know I think this is an enjoyable movie and the atmosphere and characters win the audience over but there are so many gaping flaws that need to be highlighted. Number 1: the pace is a little lacking and everything plods along so predictably that if it weren't for the performances it would have been agonising. Number 2: the one-dimensional Caroline character was absolutely unnecessary except for the yay-sobriety parallel and to get cheap laughs and up-skirt shots. Number 3: the deciding moments when Nick and Norah are tempted by their respective ex's were just painfully dumb because you just wanted to shout "What are you idiots thinking!?" but as that often happens in real life, I suppose you can't really slap it too much. Number 4: the finger-me-do/sex scene thing. Yeah, I didn't really have a lot against it but very little for it. I thought the trailing of the mic chord was an interesting and (somewhat) tasteful approach but other than that the concept of the female orgasm (allegedly achievable within twenty seconds) from the skinny geek didn't go a very long way with the audience - it just seemed a little voyeuristic. Finally Number 5: lack of adults. I know the film focuses on the lives of these teenagers but they're out until something like six in the morning and nobody calls wondering where they are? I dunno, Americans.

But, the leads and the atmosphere both work and this remains a proper teenager's/young person's romantic comedy focusing primarily on the musically alternative American youth (without all the binge-drinking, date raping and brain-dead conversations that usually crop up in films focusing on that particular age group) which appealed to my sentimental side and made it an incredibly worthwhile watch.

Release Date:
30th January 2009

The Scene To Look Out For:
Earlier I mentioned the unrealistic side of all Romantic Comedies. Before the start of the screening, my good friend Mr. Wickham nearly kicked off simply for the fact that two young ladies meandered into our row, requiring us to pick between the socially accepted stand or swivel technique of letting people through (we both opted for the swivel). Midway through passing by us one of the girls stopped and looked around, jutting her barely covered arse into Wickham's face (that may be a tad over exaggerated). After a solid minute or two, she moved by and sat next to me. After the film we reflected on the movie and the irritating social situation and came to the conclusion that if life were more like a rom-com, that incident would have consisted of more than Wickham frowning, politely avoiding eye contact with her arse and me snickering like a child - it would have been made slightly more awkward and by the end of the night he and this mystery girl would have been a solid couple. Aww. I later commented that 'it could just be us' - maybe he was supposed to say something other than 'yeah, just stand there for five fucking minutes!' You may be wondering why I have chosen to highlight this. Simple really, Wickham didn't think I would. Let's see, something from the film. I suppose I enjoyed the moment when Nick finally realises that Tris isn't for him and washes the lipstick off his windscreen. I know it sounds trivial but it was a very well filmed scene and Cera came this close to crying - which is more emotional acting in two minutes than I've seen in his entire repertoire.

Notable Characters:
Once Nick and Norah are together the story separates and we partly follow the exploits of Nick's band mates and Norah's drunken friend Caroline - her journey nicely parallels the life of a night out with sober people and a piss-up that leads to stupid antics and memory loss. The gay band mates were hilarious, I know they shouldn't have been but they were really enjoyable to watch. Also, a character that essentially wasn't a character was Randy's gum. Randy is a one-man-rapping-band that nobody likes (except for one enthusiastic fan) who exchanges the gum he's chewing with a drunken Caroline, which travels around New York and finally makes its way back to Randy by the end of the night (erm... sort of) - just thought I'd bring that up.

Highlighted Quote:
"If you don't have a drummer then why do you have drums, you fistful of assholes!?"

In A Few Words:
"Proof that smart, fun teen comedies are still being made"

Total Score:
7/10


Matthew Stogdon