Book vs movie: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

I knew that the movie Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist was going to be fun after seeing the movie’s trailer. That was what led me down a rabbit hole to discover that the movie was based on a book of the same title. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist takes place one night in New York City when two teens, Nick (Michael Cera) and Norah (Kat Dennings) have a chance encounter that pushes them together. With some assistance from Nick’s friends and bandmates Thom (Aaron Yoo) and Dev (Ravi Gaston) and despite the efforts of Tris (Alexis Dziena), Norah’s classmate and Nick’s ex-girlfriend, to keep them apart, they end up together in the end. The movie also follows Norah’s friend Caroline’s drunken escapades all over New York City while the group also searches for their favorite fictional band, Where’s Fluffy. Two differences between the book and film versions of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist that I noticed right away were how in the book, it was Nick who asked Norah to be his girlfriend for five minutes but the movie switched things around and had Norah ask Nick to be her boyfriend. The second thing that was different was how the use of music varied from the book to the movie.

Some of the obvious differences between the book and the film are how the music is portrayed in each version of the story being told. In the book, the artists are mentioned by name while in the movie the music can be heard and that’s how the people reading the book or watching the movie identify with it. It’s a key part of the story because music is the link between Nick and Norah. Nick made Tris mix tapes which Norah heard and developed a crush on Nick before they met. Some of the performers mentioned in the book include Aretha Franklin, Green Day, The Smiths, Rod Stewart, and The Cure. Personally, the fact that there wasn’t as much music mentioned in the movie compared to the book disappointed me a little because there was such a variety of music by different artists talked about in the book.

Another difference is the scene when Nick and Norah meet for the first time and Norah asks Nick to be her boyfriend for five minutes before knowing who the other one is. In the book, it’s Nick who asks Norah to be his girlfriend for five minutes to make Tris believe that he had moved on from their breakup. The swapping of the dialogue between the two main characters kind of makes the character Norah seem like she needs a guy to show Tris that she’s not a loser like Tris said. This is not how Norah is in the book. Norah in the book was confident and to me, she wasn’t a character who needed a guy because of something another girl said. I feel that the change in this scene should have remained as the authors of the book wrote it.

Despite the differences between the two, I do enjoy both the book and the movie for their differences that I’ve talked about as well as their similarities because in the end, the overall themes are the same: self discovery and forming new connections. This is evident given that the movie ends with Nick and Norah deciding to give their relationship a chance. I feel that the movie had more humorous moments than the book such as the scene between Caroline and the guy with the turkey sandwich. Not that the book didn’t have funny moments but the movie made them funnier because you can see what the characters are doing and saying as opposed to just reading it on a page. If you have only seen the movie but you haven’t read the book or vice versa, I hope you will change that

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