Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a film about love, friendship, music and one very well traveled piece of gum. Brazen yet bashful, Infinite Playlist is a delight of a film, leavened with a phosphorescent soundtrack and enough quirky performances to last the rest of the year.

Michael Cera (Superbad and Juno) and Kat Dennings (The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Charlie Bartlett) star as two forlorn teens who make a love connection over the course of one very long, very surreal night prowling the streets of New York City. If the movies are to be believed, New York City is a place of magical sights and sounds, and infinite romantic possibilities. And so it is.

Cera is Nick, the only straight guy in a gay rock band, whose unfaithful “Mean Girl” girlfriend Tris (Alexis Dziena) has just dumped him for a clueless college jock. Although the dumping occurred weeks ago, Nick continues to make Tris uber-hip mixed CDs of their favorite songs, hoping to draw her back. Dennings is Norah, the daughter of a wealthy music producer who wants nothing more than to be a normal teenager. She spends most of her time babysitting her best friend, Caroline (a very funny Ary Graynor), who doesn’t know the meaning of the word moderation.

Although Nick and Norah have next to nothing in common except for their taste in music, a chance encounter at a club where Nick is playing is transformed into an all-night quest to find their mutual favorite band’s secret show, rescue a drunken friend and somehow conjure some meaning in their college-bound futures.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is When Harry Met Sally with teens, compressed into a single, magical, bleary-eyed night. Nick and Norah scour New York, especially Manhattan’s Lower East Side, brushing against a cornucopia of funny characters and outlandish situations. Yet no matter where the story goes, director Peter Sollett and writer Lorene Scafaria (who based her screenplay on the novel by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan) never lose focus of Nick and Norah’s budding relationship. What begins as a madcap rollercoaster ride, metamorphoses into a tender, quiet, contemplative and deeply satisfying meditation as dawn’s rays inch above the horizon.

Infinite Playlist boasts two terrific leads, the prince of awkwardness and unrequited love in Cera, and Dennings, who is quickly breaking the mold for what we expect to see in teenaged female characters — a type both beautiful and bright, sultry and sweet.

Infinite Playlist contains moments of pure joy — smeared light, melodic poetry and visual enchantment. The scene in which a character locks herself inside a car is as straightforward and uncomplicated as it is beautiful and reflective. Composer Mark Mothersbaugh, best known for his Wes Anderson scores, creates a delicate, unobtrusive compliment to the action.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is effortlessly funny and charming. Despite the modern urban jungle and the ultra-hip music, the film actually resonates on a timeless level. I dare you to leave the theater without a smile on your face.

© Copyright 2008 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.