Starring: Jon Heder

Cert: PG

Napoleon (Heder) lives in a small American town with his Grandmother and brother where, at his high school, he is a social pariah. For obvious reasons too. Even though he is the ‘hero’ of this piece, and a nice enough chap, you probably wouldn’t want to know him if he was at your school either. He sports a dodgy ginger affro, a permanent expression of tedium and a penchant for lying about his abilities and extra-curricula activities; he’s basically the ultimate nerd. And so is his brother, Kip, who spends all day talking to his internet girlfriend. And so is his uncle who wishes it was still the 1980’s. And so is his best friend, Pedro, who has a moustache. And so is his love interest who sells friendship bracelets door-to-door.

Napoleon Dynamite is less a film but more a collection of sketches filmed in a rough documentary style. Practically every character is a ‘loser’ in his or her own right; all the leading protagonists are either geeks, bullies, both or self-centred jocks. They are all played so straight that you cannot help but get involved with the mundanity and bizarity of their lives.

                From the trials of getting the pet llama to eat meatloaf to running a successful campaign for Pedro for class president, strangeness is around every corner from hair loss to time machines and a climax that evokes the same gut-wrenching expectation of embarrassment as King of Comedy.

                Overall it’s a tale of triumph over adversity where these geeks and freaks are capable of overcoming the jibes of their tormentors, gaining respect from their peers and achieving their ‘happily ever after’ without doing anything other than simply being themselves. There’s hope for us all.

The features are fairly standard with an audio commentary by co-writer/director, Jared Hess, and Heder which offers a lot of behind the scenes info and stories but is delivered at an almost monotone drawl which becomes a little hard to concentrate on after a while. Then there are a selection of deleted scenes; some of which you can see why they were left out but still contain a laugh or two especially the kick-ball confrontation.

                Then there’s a making of featurette with cast interviews and general backslapping that doesn’t really add much but is interesting to see what these actors are really like.

Napoleon Dynamite is a truly genius film that I would rate with This Is Spinal Tap where, even though the characters are so extremely odd and over the top, the straightness of their delivery, excellent dialogue and simple production makes them all relatable to some degree and when the feel good denouement arrives I defy anyone not to walk away with surprised satisfaction.