This past weekend, I tried to watch "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist." I got about 20 minutes in...then the baby woke up and put a stop to that nonsense. It's a cute indie romance and it's got a killer soundtrack, which includes "Xavia." Even though I didn't get to finish it, I remember the basic plot and I was thinking about several elements in the movie that I wanted to mull over. Out loud, to no one in particular.
The movie follows your basic True Love story architecture, which is actually a superplot of two stories. Especially in good films, the True Love plot is two Hero/Heroine's Journey stories combined into a single narrative. Both characters have to overcome obstacles - usually psychologically but sometimes physically - in order reach self-actualization and achieve the final goal. As you probably could've guessed, for most romances, the goal from the audience's perspective is "to be together." You get some variation from story to story, but that's the basic gist of the formula. "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" fits this format almost exactly and the thing that makes it a better romantic comedy is that it's balanced. It's not overly focused on either the guy or the girl. The audience gets to see both journeys, which are fairly well mirrored against each other. Although they are played out in different forms, both Nick and Norah have very similar problems with their self-esteem, which they need to overcome in order to attain happiness.
"Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" uses the tropes of the Crazy-Evil (Ex)Girlfriend and the Milquetoast-Mediocre (Ex)Boyfriend. I have the "ex" in parentheses because, sometimes, these tropes come in the form of current girlfriends/boyfriends. Regardless, they both serve the same purpose - to help the hero/ine understand that they don't have to accept awful treatment in order to be loved. Nick, who is heartbroken over Tris at the beginning of the movie, realizes at the end that she's only trying to seduce him because she lost control over him. He was letting her lead him on like a puppy dog because he didn't think he could do better. Tris kind of believed it, too - and she's frustrated at the end because her physical beauty/sexuality doesn't have any hold over him anymore, which is the only power she really had in their relationship (Tris needs to do some growing, too, but it's not her movie). Conversely, Norah let her on-again-off-again fuck buddy, Tal, use her for her money and industry connections because she felt lonely. She finally breaks that pattern by seemingly giving in to his requests for her to pay their tab before serving up a dose of instant karma (spoiler: she tells the waitress to increase the tab and then leaves the bill for Tal to pay). Anyway, Nick and Norah both had to address their deeply held feelings of unworthy-ness and their patterns of letting people use them in order to reach the level of self-acceptance needed to be together.
I had more examples of these tropes and plot elements to go over but I didn't realize I had gotten so ranty over "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist." I also wanted to talk about how Norah had fallen in love with Nick before she even met him. This is also a common theme in romances - even before the Meet-Cute, the narrative drops hints for the audience that the two protagonists are on a crash course. In films, you can do this with clever visual cues (like the criss-crossing scene from "You've Got Mail") but usually, this is done in the exposition (the first 10-20 minutes of a film) as part of the world-building. In Norah's case, she finds that Nick has excellent taste in music - almost a perfect match to her taste. Not that this should be surprising - the songs for this movie were clearly chosen by a genius, which is why it has one of the best soundtracks of any film (romance, comedy, indie, or otherwise) ever.
I Don't Wanna be Your Favorite Enemy
Not when I can be Loving You, alright
Why can't it be?
No Two People feel the Same Way at the Same Time
When I first heard "Xavia," I was kind of obsessed with the last two lines of that verse. Because it seems true, doesn't it? Why can't two people ever feel the same way at the same time? But it's not true, because it has to happen at least occasionally or else no one would ever be in a relationship. We'd all be stuck in the ridiculous Hell that this song describes, where one person wants to make it work and the other is done with it. Probably one of the prettiest break-up songs I've ever heard, which makes it perfect for Nick and Norah. It's funny, because they have the opposite problem - the whole time, they both don't see that they feel the same about each other until the very end. At first, Norah is chasing Nick....until she realizes that Tris is his ex-girlfriend and she feels like she can't compete so why even try. Then, Nick chases Norah, realizing he fucked up by going with Tris, knowing that she's a manipulative snake. Again, another common theme in romances, the cat-and-mouse back-and-forth between the protagonists. It's more pronounced in other movies, and this post is already miles too long so I'll leave it for another day. Thanks for reading!
Post Note: Xavia is another one of those weird names I love that the Husband won't let me name our hypothetical daughter. I guess it's back to the drawing board.
"Xavia" Video
No comments:
Post a Comment