A really good title is a very rare thing, these days, but this one might be a small work of genius. Immediately binding the main players to a notion of romanticism and optimism with a complete love for music, it effortlessly sets the stage for the story of Nick and Norah. The pair of high school seniors, outcasts both, find themselves and each other (through no small turn of coincidence) during a single night safari through the sleepless streets of New York’s underground rock scene.

The film’s undying affection for great fringe tunes, following and updating the sentimental traditions of romances like “High Fidelity” and “Almost Famous,” is illustrated early and effectively in the title credits, a whimsical animated sequence tracking through the posters and pictures on Nick’s walls, and ultimately featuring the bands on the soundtrack before even the stars’ names.

Heartbroken at the loss of his first girlfriend (a loathsome, self-centered and malevolent little creature), sensitive Nick (Michael Cera) retreats into his music. He takes a day off to craft another in a long series of heart-and-soul make-up/break-up mixes for her, which she promptly and heartlessly discards while speaking to her hallway acquaintance, Norah (Kat Dennings from “40 Year Old Virgin”). Having heard a few of these collections, Norah promptly snatches the disc from the bin. She recognizes an immediate connection to the boy—though they have never met, they share a fondness for the same music. He’s never put a song on a play list that she isn’t simply mad about.

And then they meet. Their whirlwind courtship, beginning in a grungy New York nightclub where Nick is playing (peculiarly enough, as the single straight man in a hard rock queer-core punk band) and Norah is watching, starts surprisingly with an impromptu and anonymous kiss and quickly unspools into an “Adventures in Babysitting” style romp through the sleepless city’s underground music scene. They’re on a dual quest to locate and rescue a bingy comrade who’s scampered off into the night in a dizzy, drunken haze, and to track down a rare, secret performance by their favorite band.

Their undeniable chemistry—anxious, distracted and often painfully awkward as it is—forms the soul of the movie. Norah is a classic “Daria”-style egghead, unable to see what a catch she is, with a razor-tongued, quick draw attitude. Nick is, well, Michael Cera, an absolute clone of the roles he played in “Superbad” and “Juno.” He is demure and adorable, the model of introversion and a perennial soft-spoken wallflower. (Note to Michael: Find a new character to play. It’s cute and all, but we’re three for three here.)

The honest and ocassionally acidic exchanges between the two eclipse just about all the supporting scenes, which are pretty good in themselves. The peripheral adventures of Norah’s errant friend (and her chewing gum, which should get a credit of its own), Nick’s toxic ex with her new robotic pretty-boy, and Nick’s band are happy diversions, but pale in comparison.

The authenticity the two young leads pour into their roles is at once refreshing and genuine, but also actually serves to undermine a lot of the background work. Nick’s predominately gay friends, for example, while standing as a hopeful tribute to open-mindedness and comfort with one’s own skin, are never given any opportunity to step out as much more than fairy god-brothers fixated on hooking up their hetero pals—a tired Hollywood stereotype that seems terribly at odds with the otherwise contemporary hipster aesthetic applied to the rest of the film.

Beneath all the trappings of pre-college angst and longing for self definition, and even as shot on the grimy, steamy Scorsese back alleys, “Nick and Norah” offers an uplifting and innocent tale of connection, acceptance and true love. As another very musically inclined character sagely counsels, sometimes, as proven with The Beatles themselves, the best way to start unleashing your inner rock star may simply be with the words “I want to hold your hand.”