Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist - discussion guide

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Summary

Thom (Aaron Yoo) and Dev (Rafi Gavron), two-thirds of a queercore band called The Jerk Offs, have decided that their straight friend and fellow band-member Nick (Michael Cera) has spent enough time moping over the loss of his girlfriend, Tris (Alexis Dziena). They succeed in their efforts to get him out of the house by telling him about a surprise concert being performed that night in New York City by his favourite indie band, Where’s Fluffy? Being shy of publicity, Where’s Fluffy? has left clues across the city as to the location of the concert that night.

Tris attends Sacred Heart High School alongside Norah (Kat Dennings) and Caroline (Ari Graynor). On the surface Norah and Tris are friends, but Norah really only puts up with Tris because Caroline does. Over the past six months, Nick has been making mix CDs for Tris, which she has been discarding. Norah has been able to rescue most of those CDs from the rubbish bins, and through them, Norah has found someone who just might be her musical soul mate. When she and Caroline learn that Where’s Fluffy? is performing that night, they set out to search for the venue. Their first stop is the club known as Arlene’s Grocery, where the band’s previous New York concert had been.

Where’s Fluffy? is not playing at Arlene’s, but instead the performers are The Jerk Offs. Norah finds herself attracted to Nick and, unaware of Nick’s connection to Tris,  ends up kissing him to prove to Tris that she hasn’t come alone. Caroline gets drunk and needs to be taken home, so Nick offers to take Norah and Caroline home in his old yellow Yugo. Thom and Dev see in Norah a potential new girlfriend for their friend. They wangle it so that they, and their new friend Lethario (Jonathan Bradford Wright), take Caroline home in their van, while Nick and Norah drive around the city together searching for ‘Where’s Fluffy?’.

Background

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist is based on a novel of the same name by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. The film’s producers, Andrew Miano and Kerry Kohansky, bought the book because it struck a chord within each of them. Kohansky related to it because she was very much like the characters in the story:

When I read the book, it was with an incredible sense of nostalgia for being that age. When you're a senior in high school, life revolves around being in love and being with your friends. Everything feels so serious and so real and so complex. Nothing is ever black and white. Nick and Norah brought me back to those years.

Miano saw it as an opportunity to create a film like those he watched in the ‘80s, that would catch the audience up in the story and take them along on the journey with Nick and Norah. ‘We want audiences to walk out of the movie feeling that little tingle of magic because it could happen to them or it did happen to them,’ he says. The goal was to create something that made people remember a similar experience of a particular, unforgettable night away from school or parents.

Questions For Discussion

1. Did you like this movie? Have you had similar experiences to the night shown in the film?

2. Which of the characters were you most able to relate to? Why?

3. What might hold you back from trying new things or getting to know a new person?

4. Nick was clearly obsessed with Tris, which was understandably very annoying for Norah. Have you ever been so focused on something that it is difficult to make good decisions, or been faced with someone else with that problem? What do you find to be the best way to deal with that?

5. When Tris broke up with Nick she left a huge hole in his life. Will Norah be able to sufficiently fill that hole? Why/why not?

6. Thom suggests to Nick that sometimes the best thing is not sex or marriage, but that what everybody wants is just to hold hands. Can holding hands be a more meaningful experience than sex and marriage? Why?

7. Is it possible to have a relationship with someone that really gives your life meaning and fulfillment? Why/why not?

8. How feasible do you think it is for Thom and Dev to be able to tell that Norah might be the one for Nick? Or for Nick and Norah to connect solely through their love for the same sort of music? Why?

9. Do you think that Nick and Norah’s relationship will last a long time after the night in the film? Why/Why not? What elements are important in building a long-lasting relationship?

10. Why do we place so much emphasis on getting together with the right person? Do you think there is such a thing as ‘The One’? Why/why not? Why are relationships (not necessarily romantic ones) so central in life? What makes some more important than others?

11. Had you ever heard of the idea of tikkun olam before seeing this film? ‘The world’s been broken into pieces,’ Norah explains, ‘and it’s everybody’s job to find them and put them back together again.’ Why does tikkun olam appeal to Norah? What is there about the idea that you agree with? Is there anything wrong with this, and if so, what?

12. Nick suggests, ‘Maybe we’re not supposed to find the pieces. Maybe we are the pieces.’ What do you think he means?

13. If the world has been broken, that means at one time it was whole. Genesis 1:31 says that ‘God looked over all that he had made, and he saw that it was very good.’ Would you describe the world today as ‘very good’? If not, what is wrong with it? What needs to happen in order for the world to become perfect again?

14. Jesus came to Earth to make it possible for us to have a relationship with God through his death and resurrection. How important is this relatonship to you? How do you respond to the idea that a relationship with God is what the world needs most?

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