Scrape the thick layer of self-congratulatory hipster sludge off Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and you’ll find a sweet, funny little heir to the grand tradition of the “crazy New York all-nighter” movie. It works in large part due to the chemistry between Michael Cera – who, yes, only ever plays one character, the meek nebbish with great comic timing, but it worked for Woody Allen, so shut up – and Kat Dennings, my new future ex-wife. (Hey, she’s not really a teenager, you know! She’s 22! See, it’s not quite as creepy as you thought!) As Norah, Dennings somehow finds the gray area between vulnerability and ironic detachment, and she more than holds her own with Cera in the funny department.
Or, as Nick and Norah screenwriter Lorene Scafaria told the L.A. Times, “She's like everything that Molly Ringwald and Winona Ryder and Julia Roberts were, wrapped up into one amazingly talented girl.” I’m not sure I’d sign on with that or even that I can imagine such a creature, but we’ll let that slide. Since she wasn’t stamped out of a cookie cutter, Dennings struggled early in her acting career. “Soon she was heading out on auditions and facing endless rejections. ‘And they'd say, “Oh, you're too this or too that. You're not this enough. Your teeth, your hair,”’ recalls Dennings, who has never conformed to Hollywood's narrow standards of beauty. ‘It's terrible. It's the worst environment for a growing girl or person in the world.’”
You know what’s a much better environment for Dennings? The blogosphere! We’re all very nice here, and if you could see us, you’d know we don’t have such narrow standards of beauty. As it happens, however, Dennings has been blogging since 2001. At the aptly named katdennings.com, you can read about her epic battle with a giant grasshopper, as well as such posts as “I held something Mr. T held,” and observations like, “The cantankerous Polish fisherman within me has rapped his cane on my chest cavity yet again, muttering incoherent threats from behind his pipe.” We’ve all been there.
Related:
Trailer Review: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Screengrab Review: Charlie Bartlett