Napoleon Dynamite

His own private Ida-fro

There are certain occasions when you realize that a particular movie has developed a cult following. Sometimes it's because of recommendations, as when every drama geek you know demands you see Harold and Maude. Sometimes the epiphany strikes you after multiple viewings, as when you try to figure out how many times you've seen Better Off Dead and you give up counting after fourteen. Sometimes the costumes clue you in, as you watch your friends and acquaintances "suit up" to participate in another midnight screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Rocky Horror Picture Show. And sometimes—on very rare occasions—you realize you're watching a cult film the very first time you see it.

Tonight, I saw a future cult film called Napoleon Dynamite. It's being released by Fox Searchlight, a subset of 20th Century Fox which specializes in quirky indie films and imports. And this film is nothing if not quirky, right down to the opening credits (primarily presented on various platters of food, all of which are eaten at some point during the movie).

Preston, Idaho is not exactly the most moving and shaking place on earth. A rural farm town in the Intermountain West, just over the border from Utah, Preston is bordered by craggy mountains, filled with wheat fields and chicken farms, and features architecture which stalled out sometime in the late 1970s. (Fashion has, in some cases, struggled all the way up to 1987.) Amid this rural splendor is the hero of our tale, a high school senior with the singular name of Napoleon Dynamite. Everyone knows someone like Napoleon (Heder), the biggest geek-who-thinks-he's-cool in creation—a quintessential mouthbreather with a vacant expression, hair resembling a mass of red Brillo, and all the social skills of an eight-year-old boy. And he's gonna do whatever he FEELS like doing . . . GOSH!

Napoleon lives with his grandmother, his 32-year-old pasty technophile brother Kip (Ruell), and Grandma's pet llama Tina. When Grandma gets injured while four-wheeling at the sand dunes, Uncle Rico (Gries) temporarily moves in to "take care" of the Dynamite brothers. Rico is an aging jock who lives in his van, appears to eat nothing but steak, and longs to return to 1982 so he can take State, start his professional football career and marry his soulmate. He and Kip—who needs enough money to bring his Internet girlfriend LaFawnduh to Preston—embark on a series of misguided attempts to make themselves some money by selling cheap crap door to door. Meanwhile, Napoleon meanders through school, makes friends with new student Pedro (Ramirez), and meets a peculiar girl (Majorino) who takes glamour shots in her home and sells boondoggle keychains. He shops at Deseret Industries, asks a cheerleader out to the school dance, and tries not to get beat up by the jocks. Like many cult films, the plot of Napoleon Dynamite is tenuous at best, though it does tie up some loose ends here and there (be sure to wait through the credits; there's a good bit at the very end).

Most of the humor is of the random variety—this is the first movie I can think of in which someone gets beaned upside the head by a piece of flying steak—and it's probably one of those films best experienced in a crowded theater, as the humor tends to feed on itself. I'm not sure how funny this movie would be to people outside the Intermountain West, since at least part of the humor comes from the director's ability to nail down the precise details of life in a rural Idaho town (right down to the characters dialing phone numbers with Preston's actual 852 prefix, instead of Hollywood's fictitious 555). The film also gets it right about what it's really like to be a social reject in high school; there's little candy-coating or soft focus here, and only one scene where everyone cheers for the nerd.

I've heard some complaints that this is a mean-spirited movie because it encourages audience-goers to laugh at the title character's stupidity and social ineptness. But the more you watch, the more you realize that you're rooting for Napoleon. In fact, Hess has created a movie in which Napoleon isn't nearly as weird as some of the people surrounding him. The entire town is populated by freaks, dweebs, and assorted characters; by comparison, a misfit who draws ligers, taste-tests milk for the FFA, and buys secondhand sai is hardly the strangest character in the film—not by a long shot.

Napoleon Dynamite isn't perfect, nor is it hysterical, but it is definitely different—and funny. Will it go on to become a cult favorite? Well, time will tell. But if you start seeing rust-colored three-piece leisure suits disappear from the local Salvation Army, remember: you saw it here first.

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