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Heartbreak and mix CDs, isn’t that what the teenage years are all about? They start off Peter Sollett’s romantic comedy in one of those one crazy night plots. As the title suggests there is a boy named Nick and a girl name Norah and there will be music involved. This hit or miss comedy does a good job with those parts, but it disconnects before the upload is finished with the rest.

Nick (Michael Cera, JUNO) is pinning over his ex-girlfriend Tris (Alexis Dziena, BROKEN FLOWERS). He keeps making her mix CDs to win her back, but she just tosses them in the trash. This is where they are recovered by Norah (Kat Dennings, THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN), who loves Nick’s taste in music. She’s also loves his Queercore band, The Jerk-Offs, which also includes the gay members Thom (Aaron Yoo, DISTURBIA) and Dev (Rafi Gavron, INKHEART). Rumors hit the school that the publicity shy band Where’s Fluffy? is playing a secret concert in NYC. Thom and Dev drag Nick to find them, while separately Norah and her best friend Caroline (Ari Graynor, An AMERICAN CRIME) do the same. As one would expect the paths of Nick, Norah, Tris and Norah’s friend with benefits Tal (Jay Baruchel, KNOCKED UP) will cross during the night.

Based on a novel by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, adapted by Lorene Scafaria, the story handles the budding romance between Nick and Norah well. But for too long the plot follows the standards of this kind of film. Norah and Tris don’t like each other so she fakes having a boyfriend and kisses Nick not knowing that he was Tris’s ex, which is unlikely. Of course now Tris becomes interested in Nick again. Nick single-mindedly obsesses over Tris so Norah is put off, stringing out them getting together. Thom and Dev latch onto some dimwitted dude called Lethario (Johnathan B. Wright, YOUTH IN REVOLT). Caroline gets smashed and goes missing and gets disgusting things in her mouth, because that’s funny.

At some point, the plot finally puts Nick and Norah together alone and then it clicks. Cera and Dennings have chemistry together, given characters that have some depth and connection for each other. They have their own agendas that don’t put their future together at the forefront. We believe these are two young people who are getting to know and like each other. The rest of the film is a distraction. None of the other characters emerge as more than types. There is a great tradition of having high and low comedy in the same film, but it doesn’t work here because the low in from the gutter and the high is from the heart. Dev and Thom are annoying and the Caroline is just gross, not comedy. Tris is a cliché and doesn’t even seem like a girl who’d go for a guy like Nick in the first place. And Sollett’s direction at the end is painfully drawn out for pointless effect.

Nick and Norah’s romance is like the club playing that fresh new song everyone loves, while the comedic asides are them following it up with some overplayed kitsch tune. For the target audience, both tones might work to some degree. Teens who connect with the shy, but cool, attitude of Nick or Norah will connect with the film. For adults, this playlist is like new songs that sound like the songs you listened to as a teen that make you wonder why you thought they were so original back then.

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