Napoleon Dynamite
Napoleon Dynamite is a 2004 American independent coming-of-age teen comedy film produced by Jeremy Coon, Chris Wyatt, and Sean Covel, written by Jared and Jerusha Hess, and directed by Jared Hess. The film stars Jon Heder in the role of the titular character, a nerdy high-school student who deals with several dilemmas: befriending an immigrant who wants to be class president, awkwardly pursuing a romance with a fellow student, and living with his quirky family.
This article is about the film. For the television series based on the film, see Napoleon Dynamite (TV series). For the singer, see Elvis Costello.Napoleon Dynamite
- Jared Hess
- Jerusha Hess
Peluca
by Jared Hess
Munn Powell
Jeremy Coon
- Fox Searchlight Pictures (North America and Italy)
- Paramount Pictures (under MTV Films; international)
- January 17, 2004 (Sundance)
- June 11, 2004 (United States)
95 minutes[1]
United States
English
$400,000[1]
$46.1 million[1]
The film was Hess's first full-length movie and is partially adapted from his earlier short film, Peluca (2002). Napoleon Dynamite was acquired at the Sundance Film Festival by Fox Searchlight Pictures, who partnered up with Paramount Pictures and MTV Films for the release. Filming was done at Preston High School and in different areas in Franklin County, Idaho, in the summer of 2003. It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2004. Most of the situations in the movie are loosely based on the life of Jared Hess. The film's total worldwide gross revenue was $46.1 million.[2] The film has since developed a cult following[3][4] and was voted at number 14 on Bravo's 100 funniest movies.[5]
Plot[edit]
Napoleon Dynamite is a socially awkward 16-year-old from Preston, Idaho, who lives with his grandmother, Carlinda, and his even more awkward older brother, Kip. Napoleon daydreams his way through school, reluctantly dealing with various bullies who torment him.
Carlinda is injured in a quad-bike accident and asks their Uncle Rico to look after the boys while she recovers. Rico, a middle-aged and flirtatious former high-school athlete who lives in a conversion van, treats Napoleon like a child. He takes advantage of the visit to team up with Kip in a get-rich-quick scheme by selling items door-to-door. Kip wants money to pay for his internet girlfriend, LaFawnduh, to travel from Detroit to see him while Rico believes riches will help him get over his failed dreams of NFL stardom and the recent breakup with his girlfriend.
Napoleon becomes friends with two students at his school: Deb, a shy girl who runs various small businesses to raise money for college, and Pedro, a bold yet calm transfer student from Juárez, Mexico. Preparations begin for the high school dance. Pedro asks Summer Wheatley, a popular and snobby girl, to be his dance partner, but is rebuffed. He then asks Deb, who gladly accepts. Pedro encourages an upset Napoleon to find a date for himself, and he picks a popular classmate, Trisha, from the school yearbook. As a gift, he draws an unintentionally bad picture of her and delivers it to Trisha's mother, who is one of Rico's customers. Rico tells embarrassing stories about Napoleon to evoke sympathy from Trisha's mother, who buys his wares and forces Trisha to reluctantly accept Napoleon's invitation. Trisha goes to the dance with Napoleon but soon abandons him, leading Pedro to let Deb dance with Napoleon.
Pedro decides to run for class president, pitting him against Summer. The two factions put up flyers and hand out trinkets to students to attract voters. To increase their respect by demonstrating "skills," Napoleon and Pedro enter a Future Farmers of America competition, grading milk and cow udders. They do well and win medals, but this does little for their popularity. Incidentally, Napoleon visits a thrift store and buys an instructional dance videotape called D-Qwon's Dance Grooves.
Kip's girlfriend, LaFawnduh, arrives from Detroit and gives him an urban makeover, outfitting him in hip-hop regalia. Seeing that he is learning to dance, LaFawnduh gives Napoleon a mixtape.
Rico's ongoing sales scheme causes friction with Napoleon as he continues to spread embarrassing rumors about Napoleon to prospective customers. Rico tries to sell Deb a breast-enhancement product, claiming it was Napoleon's suggestion, which causes her to break off their friendship. His scheme ends after his sales pitch to the wife of the town's martial arts instructor, Rex, goes awry: Rex assaults Rico after unexpectedly arriving during his demonstration of the breast-enhancement product.
Summer gives a speech before the student body on election day, and then presents a dance skit to "Larger than Life" by the Backstreet Boys with a school club. A despondent Pedro gives an unimpressive speech after discovering he is also required to perform a skit. To save Pedro's campaign, Napoleon gives the sound engineer LaFawnduh's mixtape and spontaneously performs an elaborate dance routine to "Canned Heat" by Jamiroquai. Proving himself to be a skilled dancer, Napoleon's routine receives a standing ovation from students, stunning Summer and her boyfriend, Don.
Pedro becomes the class president, Kip and LaFawnduh leave on a bus for Michigan, Rico reunites with his estranged girlfriend, Grandma returns from the hospital, and Napoleon and Deb reconcile and play tetherball.
In a post-credits scene set two months later, Kip and LaFawnduh get married, and Napoleon arrives at the wedding late with a wild honeymoon stallion which he tamed for Kip and LaFawnduh to ride out on.
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
Despite a very limited initial release, Napoleon Dynamite was a commercial success. It was filmed on an estimated budget of a mere $400,000, and less than a year after its release, it had grossed $44,940,956.[1] It also spawned a slew of merchandise, from refrigerator magnets to T-shirts and Halloween costumes.[38][39]
Critical response[edit]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 72% of 175 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.40/10. The website's consensus reads, "A charming, quirky, and often funny comedy."[40] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 64 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[41]
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine complimented the film, saying, "Hess and his terrific cast – Heder is geek perfection – make their own kind of deadpan hilarity. You'll laugh till it hurts. Sweet."[42] The Christian Science Monitor called the film "a refreshing new take on the overused teen-comedy genre" and said that the film "may not make you laugh out loud – it's too sly and subtle for that – but it will have you smiling every minute, and often grinning widely at its weirded-out charm."[43]
Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice praised the film as "an epic, magisterially observed pastiche on all-American geekhood, flooring the competition with a petulant shove."[44] In a mixed review, The New York Times praised Heder's performance and the "film's most interesting quality, which is its stubborn, confident, altogether weird individuality", while criticizing the film's resolution that comes "too easily."[45] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one-and-a-half stars, writing that he felt that "the movie makes no attempt to make [Napoleon] likable" and that it contained "a kind of studied stupidity that sometimes passes as humor".[46] At the time, Entertainment Weekly critics gave it a grade C and C− respectively.[47][48][49][50] Entertainment Weekly later ranked Napoleon #88 on its 2010 list of The 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years, saying, "A high school misfit found a sweet spot, tapping into our inner dork."[51] The film was on several year-end lists. Rolling Stone placed it at number 22 of the 25 Top DVDs of 2004.[52]
Legacy[edit]
The term "The Napoleon Dynamite Problem" has been used to describe the phenomenon where "quirky" films such as Napoleon Dynamite, Lost in Translation (2003) and I Heart Huckabees (2004) prove difficult for researchers to create algorithms that are able to predict whether or not a particular viewer will like the film based on their ratings of previously viewed films.[66]
For several years the city of Preston held a "Napoleon Dynamite Festival" in the summer.[67] Many of the featured festival themes related to events occurring during the film. For example: Tetherball Tournament, Tater Tot Eating Contest, Moon Boot Dance, Impersonation, Look-A-Like Contest, Football Throwing Contest and more. Fifteen years after the film came out fans continue to visit Preston, primarily as a side trip as they make their way to Yellowstone National Park.[68]
The success of Napoleon Dynamite led to other films set in small towns, such as Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and Juno (2007), which would have similar critical, popular, and financial success.[69]
