Napoleon Dynamite

Napoleon Dynamite is the ultimate nerd. Napoleon (Jon Heder) has no friends among his peers at the Idaho high school he attends. Napoleon chooses to march to his own drummer, and the price he pays is alienation and ridicule.. He knows about farming, but gets upset when his Grandma (Sandy Martin) goes away with Napoleon's aunt for the weekend. His adult brother, Kip (Aaron Ruell), spends his free time chatting online with a female acquaintance in Detroit, and hopes to save enough money to buy her a bus ticket for a visit. When Grandma gets hurt, she contacts the brothers' Uncle Rico (Jon Gries) to check in on them. Uncle Rico does more than that, though. The forty-something salesman, who's living in his van, tries to take control of Napoleon and Kip's lives.

Napoleon has other plans, especially after he has made friends with Pedro Sanchez (Efren Ramirez), a fellow student who has just transferred to Napoleon's high school. Even though he's not interested in her small business ventures, he finds he likes Deb (Tina Majorino), the neighbor girl who's hoping to earn money to go to college. The boys find they enjoy the same activities. When a school dance is announced, Pedro asks Summer Wheatly (Haylie Duff), the most popular girl in the class. When she says no, he asks Deb, who accepts. Napoleon also gets a date, but that date, who is a close friend of Summer, ditches him the moment she gets the opportunity. The boys use the experience to challenge in an election for class president. Pedro is the candidate, and Napoleon vows to support his friend in this pursuit.

Heder is convincing as the title character in Napoleon Dynamite - and that's precisely the problem with this film. He was as uninteresting to me as he was to his classmates. He likes fanny packs, he has problems with being self-sufficient, and he's totally clueless about his talent. He makes a drawing of a girl that only remotely looks like her. Napoleon then gives her that picture, expecting her to be impressed with the effort he put into that drawing. The drawing doesn't excuse her meanness, but it does explain why Napoleon has problems with relating to humanity. He wanders through adolescence with little aim, and less opportunity to develop interpersonal skills with his peers. I'm glad he has his own interests, but he's also lucky he found ways to connect with Pedro and Deb. If I were Napoleon's classmate, I would have no interest in joining the boy in a game of tether ball.

It also seems that director Jared Hess, who co-wrote the script with his wife, Jerusha, was heavily inspired by the work of Wes Anderson, especially Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. One of the big differences between Napoleon Dynamite and Max Fischer is that Max didn't shy away from human contact or big challenges. The worlds created by the Hesses and by Anderson (in collaboration with Owen Wilson) are similar in that they focus on dysfunctional people, like the Tenenbaums. These writers also look for a story angle that makes life right for everyone. The problem is that Napoleon and everyone he knows are so dysfunctional, they make the characters of Anderson and Wilson seem normal. The Tenenbaums are far less afraid to face life than Napoleon, Kip, or Uncle Rico. Grandma has more of a life than the men who are related to her. Wes Anderson knows how to make slow pacing work. Jared Hess does not. He just comes across as a pale imitation of Anderson.

Another telling sign of the film's lack of originality is the movie's title itself. Some Elvis Costello fans will recognize the name Napoleon Dynamite as a pseudonym once used by the singer who was born Declan McManus. I'm not sure if the Hesses were trying to show some appreciation for Costello's music, but that nod is no more effective than some of the bits I think might have been trying to be humorous. It isn't funny to hear Kip sing a love song in a low, off-key voice to his woman - especially when Jared Hess subjects viewers to all of the verses. It's just mean when Uncle Rico tells lies about Napoleon to both his clients and to Deb. I can't speak for anyone's high school days except mine, but I never remember a requirement that election speeches had to be accompanied by a skit. Some resolutions in Napoleon Dynamite require huge leaps of faith I was not convinced to take.

One of the DVD extras of Napoleon Dynamite is Peluca, a nine-minute black-and-white short made by Jared Hess which served as the blueprint for Napoleon Dynamite. In it, Heder stars as Seth, a nerdy teenager with equally nerdy friends. When one of the friends helps Seth buy a lottery ticket which proves to be a winner, they spend the winnings on a fanny pack a wig. It's short, sad, and bizarre, especially when the boys go to a store to spend their winnings. Seth lovingly admires a fanny pack, while his friends fondle a wig. Peluca is just as bad as the main feature. Thankfully, the former is about 80 minutes shorter.

Napoleon Dynamite could not have been much worse, as it wallows in its own nerdy sense of itself. A 90-minute documentary on dynamite would have more entertainment value than this sorry story. The people in Napoleon's circle of friends and family are a sorry lot at the beginning of this film, and they're still pretty much the same sorry lot at the end. It's been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If Wes Anderson or Elvis Costello ever critique Napoleon Dynamite, they might beg to differ. The film is an imitation of some far better work.