Classic Movie Review: ‘Napoleon Dynamite’
Starting at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival we began hearing raves about a little $400,000 dollar indie called . The film about a nerdy Idaho kid and his weird family and friends became a hit at arthouses and online where fan-sites spouted dialogue and debated the film’s deeper meanings even before the film became a mainstream smash. Once did hit the mainstream in wide release the hype proved to be very real, Napoleon Dynamite was a phenomenon.
The film went on to gross more than $46 million dollars and spawned parodies, Halloween costumes, dance imitations, and even a Napoleon Dynamite Festival in the tiny town of Preston, Idaho where the movie was set. Even 17 years later there is talk of a potential sequel to Napoleon Dynamite with star Jon Heder indicating he’d be interested in a darker and stranger look at the life of Napoleon Dynamite. Regardless of what direction a sequel might take, the original remains an iconic and timeless cult classic.
Napoleon Dynamite is unique because it is essentially plotless. Jon Heder plays Napoleon, a highly unlikable, antisocial misfit with thick glasses, snow boots in summer and a shock of orange curly hair that looks like a David Lynch creation. His family is equally odd. His brother Kip (Aaron Ruell) is a mousy nerd who spends all his time on the net chatting with his “girlfriend.” Both Kip and Napoleon are the type of guys who have girlfriends no one else has ever met.
Napoleon’s uncle Rico (John Gries) is a traveling salesman who lives in his van and can’t get over his high school memories of imagined football glory, he never actually got on the field. Then there is Napoleon’s grandmother, unseen for most of the film after she is injured in an extreme sports accident. Napoleon’s only friend is Pedro (Effren Ramirez), a new kid in town who seems shy and reserved but has no fear when asking out Summer (Haylie Duff), the most popular girl in school. She turns him down.
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Originally published at https://vocal.media.