“Napoleon Dynamite” is the kind of
film you feel like re-watching every few years. Its fun catchphrases
(“Flippin' Sweet!”) and bizarro, geek-chic ethos made it a
comedic, cultural event. With such movies, there's always a
temptation to re-watch and try to re-capture that delight you felt
watching it for the first time.
Watching it this week, I found that
delight hard to find at first. The characters are so intentionally
bizarre that they are hard to relate to, and it takes a while to get
even the film's minimal narrative going. For those who haven't seen
the movie, Napoleon (Jon Heder) is an extremely nerdy high-school
student. With his mouth half-open and his eyes half-closed under
tinted glasses, he comes across as mildly autistic. With no friends,
the guy lives in his head, drawing pictures of ligers and playing
solo-tetherball. Napoleon befriends a new kid in school, the equally
sleepy-eyed Pedro (Efren Ramirez). They wind up connecting with the
awkward Deb (Tina Majorino), and the three of them form a little,
nerdy team. Meanwhile, Napoleon's stunted older brother Kip tries to
find love online, while his crazy Uncle Rico dreams of traveling back
in time to his high school glory days.
The magic of “Napoleon Dynamite”
is that while the characters are initially so bizarre that they seem
unrelatable, they become highly relatable by the end. Most movies
about teenagers present outsider status as some kind of badge of
honor. The hyper-articulate “nerds” wear black clothes, listen
to cool music, and read interesting books. They are highly aware of
their outsider status, and they are rewarded when they make a deep
connection with a fellow outsider. These movies, like “The Perks
of Being a Wallflower,” basically depict the kind of nerd that the
adult filmmaker wishes he had been as a teen. “Napoleon Dynamite,”
for all of its strangeness, is more real. Napoleon and his friends
lack self-awareness. They just sort of muddle through, mostly
clueless about themselves and others. I think this feels very
familiar to most people.
There's a great scene in the film
where the kids are at a dance and the Alphaville song “Forever
Young” plays. The lyric “I want to be forever young” is deeply
ironic considering how difficult being young is, for Napoleon and his
friends, and really for most people. They say old age is not for
sissies, but adolescence is no picnic either.
4 stars out of 5
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