Jared Hess’ independent darling Napoleon Dynamite is for all the kids who were picked on in school: the geeks, the dweebs, the losers, the nerds, those who didn’t have $100 sneakers, those with pimples, the girls with small breasts, the boys with large breasts, the kids who liked computer class and those who snorted when they laughed.
Jon Heder stars in the titular role, a confident loser if there ever was one. Napoleon has few friends and it’s no wonder why. Not only does he look the part of a loser, he acts like a jerk with an occasionally bad attitude to boot. Still there’s something endearing and likable about him. Perhaps it’s his innocent naivety about the world around him. After all, he’s just a high school kid in search of his ‘skills’. Napoleon’s confident in himself and his loserdom. He doesn’t care much about what other people think about him.
With a lose plot that is little more than following Napoleon around his small Idaho town and meeting his quirky classmates and family members, the success or failure for Napoleon Dynamite rests on its moments. There’s lots of them. And for the most part they’re funny. In fact, I haven’t laughed this hard in a while. But there was still a little voice on my shoulder that had me wondering at whose expense were the jokes coming from.
Napoleon Dynamite can be read as paying tribute to white trash as everyone seems to be shallow failures unable to realize that they’re purpose is simply to be laughed at. Then there’s the borderline racism that Hess approaches in the portrayal of Napoleon’s best friend Pedro (Efren Ramirez). He’s a recently arrived immigrant from Mexico. The principal speaks down to him like he speaks little English, he’s the only person in the school who can grow a mustache and he knows a couple of Latinos who exist only to drive a hydraulic low-rider convertible and wear white undershirts.
Then there’s that tinge of guilt I felt as Napoleon made a fool of himself. It reminded me when I was in high school and everyone would laugh at the ‘geeks’ and their outbursts and bad coordination. It’s not that I was anywhere close to the cool crowd, but there were those below me on the unforgiving food chain of teenagedom that I was shallow enough to laugh at at the time, just like there were those who did the same to me.
As cruel as it can be, Hess is striving to make a point with Napoleon Dynamite. In the end, it genuinely plays out like a tribute to those who were never cool in high school. It’s a call to be yourself in light of those around you and have confidence in whatever your ‘skills’ may be, no matter how geeky or nerdish.
I don’t know if that fully cancels out some of the heavy stereotypes that are played upon, but this is still a funny and sweet film. Its characters are definite originals that are eccentric but still connected enough that you can see people you know, might have known or even yourself in them. Everybody in the world has some geek in them. Napoleon Dynamite catches the imagination and passion of it and simply lets it run.
Napoleon Dynamite Gallery
