Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
Directed by Jared Hess
A listless and alienated teenager decides to help his new friend win the class presidency in their small western high school, while he must deal with his bizarre family life back home.
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14 films that influenced Napoleon Dynamite
What critics say influenced Napoleon Dynamite
Directed by Brigham Young University film graduate Jared Hess and written with his wife, Jerusha, "Napoleon" suggests Todd Solondz's "Welcome to the Dollhouse" stuffed into the confines of an MTV interstitial skit.
In many ways Hess' film owes considerable debt to the likes of Tod Williams' The Adventures of Sebastian Cole and Todd Solondz' Welcome to the Dollhouse, at least in terms of narrative structure and the deadpan exploration of the outer fringes of the high school social system.
When Napoleon appears in moonboots, elastic-waistband pants and a teal, wolf-emblazoned t-shirt, it's clear there hasnt been a movie character of such social-bullseye proportions since Heather Matarazzos Weiner-Dog in Welcome to the Dollhouse .
With its horribly geeky and painfully needy characters, this black comedy by Jared Hess bears a certain resemblance to Todd Solondz's Welcome to the Dollhouse but steers clear of Solondz's punishing nihilism, allowing its hopeless misfits some genuine comfort in one another's friendship.
Unlike Todd Solondz's acidic Welcome to the Dollhouse, rife with stinging perceptions, Napoleon Dynamite ends up diluting its potency with some unbelievable side trips.
See him perform a sign-language translation of Bette Midler's "The Rose."
Napoleon Dynamite is so low-budget, its biggest name is Tina Majorino, most widely seen in Andre, the talking-seal movie.
In many ways Hess' film owes considerable debt to the likes of Tod Williams' The Adventures of Sebastian Cole and Todd Solondz' Welcome to the Dollhouse, at least in terms of narrative structure and the deadpan exploration of the outer fringes of the high school social system.
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But Hess' take on the place is along the lines of David Lynch's vision of our own state's Lumberton in Blue Velvet.
For me, the point at which it becomes apparent is during the high school dance, when he’s ditched by his date (who has been forced by her mother to accompany Napoleon as a sympathy thing), and eventually ends up dancing with the girl he really likes (Tina Majorino, WATERWORLD’s little girl all grown up) to the strains of “Time After Time.”
I’d much rather watch Rushmore than this film, however.
Gosh! It's "Napoleon Dynamite," a trashy Midwestern remake of "Rushmore" with lots of wry laughs, bad food, and a pet llama called Tina.
Of course, similar things could be said of the iconoclastic misfits at the center of almost any youth picture that prefers oddballs to prom kings, including three fine entries from earlier this year — Noi, The Girl Next Door and Mean Girls — and, in particular, Anderson’s Rushmore, a film on which Hess seems to have overdosed.
The story is as steeped in Middle American atmosphere as "Election" and other dark comedies by Alexander Payne, but Mr. Hess gives his own special twist to debunking the utopian myth of heartland America that appears in mainstream movies.
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When your movie not only holds up Good Will Hunting as an honored inspiration but makes the Damon-Driver romance seem like Brief Encounter by comparison, it's not a bad time to call someone with some actual experience in directing.
Fans of the Coen brothers ("Raising Arizona," "O Brother, Where Art Thou?") will recognize the sort of lovable oddballs here, chief among them being the title character (played by Jon Heder), a high school senior who draws fantasy creatures, fancies himself a nun-chuck expert, and generally behaves with unselfconscious individuality.