First time director Jared Hess delivers this sweet and charmingly off-kilter high school comedy set in rural Preston, Idaho, his real-life hometown. The winning cast and quirky script combine for a good time at the movies and Napoleon Dynamite is the most original movie teen since Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Napoleon is a nerd with a capital N. He has frizzy red hair, wears glasses, goofy t-shirts, hammer-pants and moon-boots. He likes to draw pictures of his favorite animal, ligers (a cross between a lion and a tiger), and enjoys solitary games of tetherball. He lives with his dune-buggy-riding grandma and 32-year-old, just as nerdy, slacker brother. When grandma is hospitalized after a dune wipe-out Uncle Rico comes to stay with the brothers while she recovers. He is stuck in his glory days, trying to recapture 1982 when he almost led his football team to the state championship.
Napoleon finds a best friend in recent Mexican immigrant Pedro. In his own way he is just as much an outsider as Napoleon. Shy girl Deb rounds out the geeky threesome. To save money for college she sells homemade boondoggle key chains and works at a glamour shots photography studio. The main gist of the plot concerns Pedro's run for class president with Napoleon running his campaign. He is up against popular girl Summer (played by Hilary Duff's older sister Haylie) - her slogan is 'vote for me and it will be summer all year long'.
The town of Preston creates the perfect setting. Although set in the present the town seems to be at least twenty-five years behind the rest of the world. Anyone who went to school during the nineteen-seventies or eighties should get waves of nostalgia at the look of Preston High. The open fields and distant panoramic mountains add to the sense of isolation. This is a world apart. And though at times Hess seems to be making fun of these small town people, it is never mean-spirited. For the most part he is laughing with them and not at them.
Everyone remembers that unpopular nerdy kid in school who seemed to live in his own world. The one you probably never spoke to or wondered much about. Napoleon Dynamite takes you inside the world of one such student and celebrates his geekiness. Warning: this is an unabashed feel-good flick but the cast is so vividly wrought and the humor so infectious that I wouldn't be surprised if this little movie becomes a breakout summer hit. I hope so anyway.
