Napoleon Dynamite 2004
I approached this movie with great trepidation, having heard from grownups how awful it was and from my nephews and neices how fantastic it was. As my brother pointed out, it is probably best to watch this movie with people who really enjoy it and will laugh at all the right parts because you might not always know the first time through. You don’t really know whether the main character, Napoleon, will be okay or meet a violent end. He is so weird, so socially inept, and so surrounded by oddballs that you never know.
So without anyone to point out the funny parts, I took a skeptical view of the whole movie. While I found parts to be quietly funny and the movie to be enjoyable for the most part, I didn’t think it was great either. Always on the outskirts of the social crowd myself, I grew up with people a lot like Napoleon. I think one thing that is striking is how the people around Napoleon accept him. In the more superficial suburbs, Napoleon would be ridiculed and isolated, but in rural Idaho he is afforded a certain level of acceptance by his peers, which probably isn’t that unrealistic. The bleak surroundings and stoic characters remind me a lot of Smoke Signals about two teenagers on an Indian reservation (also in Idaho). While that movie had some decent observations, this one settles for just letting the oddball assortment of characters clown around.
In the end, nothing I can say will change anyone’s mind. Napolean Dynamite will continue to be loathed by some and adored by others, and not for any particular reason. I’ll give it a B-.