"Napoleon Dynamite" is Still a Baffling, Dated Gem at 10 Years Old

Jon Heder

Think back to 2004. Imagine, if you will, a strange period in history where director Jared Hess' Napoleon Dynamite was the biggest thing in the world. The "Vote for Pedro" t-shirts were everywhere, disaffected youth were spouting the nonsensical lines, MySpace had about 40 profiles just for Kip (Aaron Ruell), and the film grossed $44 million on a budget of $400,000. Not bad for a Sundance film that essentially got fame through grassroots marketing. However, with today marking its 10th anniversary, there are plenty of questions to ask, notably "What is the appeal?" It was essentially a navel gazing indie, but with a clueless protagonist played by Jon Heder. For many, it was endearing while for others, it made no sense. Either way, it is the indie that could, and there's not a whole lot of logic as to why that is.

The film is synonymous with nonsensical one liners that, in general, make no sense. Lines like "Sweet!" and "Are you drinking 1% because you think you're fat?" became national jargon because they made no sense. Maybe it was because Heder brought a guffawed charm to a character that reminded so many people of their own high school years. It was a film that felt like it had its own logic and specificity to its coolness. Set in Preston, Idaho, the story came out of nowhere to be one of the few high school films with a detached sense to modern trends and necessity to be cool. It was retro and believed that ligers were cool. Even the best characters, such as Pedro (Efren Ramirez) had a sense of low self esteem to their performances.

But what was the film about? By the end when Napoleon is playing tether ball set to When in Rome, not much has happened. Napoleon hasn't gone on a great journey except that he performed one of the strangest dances in 2000's cinema. He was an outcast who never conformed to the popularity and instead chose to ask hitting questions like "Do chickens have large talons?" Even his brother Kip, who failed at karate, has more of a fulfilling story when he meets his online date, the African American woman Lafawnduh (Shondrella Avery). It is radical and in the grand scheme, isn't the most ludicrous thing that this film has done. 

The reality is that the film's charm is also its biggest detractor. It feels like it was popular solely as a connecting tissue for high school students. They spoke the lines because it was their own hidden language. With the guffawed voice in tow, they tended to bring it out at strange periods. The film even made Bravo's Top 100 Funniest Movies (which itself is a suggestive and bad list) with claims that there was something new to discover every time it was watched. The film is actually very simple and the only real charm is that it was a film that exploited the outcast nature of nerds without choosing to glamorize it. Napoleon never fit in, and that spoke to audiences in a film that was essentially the anti-John Hughes film. Its triumphs came in minimalist ways, such as the lo-fi nature of fake drivers licenses. It was more honest and unique in that it didn't set its hopes too high and resulted in strange joy.

But why this film? Along with the release of Mean Girls, it was a wonderful time for high school films. These two paralleled each other in terms of studio to indie. Where Mean Girls was polished and easily more quotable, Napoleon Dynamite was more raw and relied on charm more than good writing. The rural areas of Idaho have rarely been this popular. The only real difference is that even if Napoleon Dynamite was successful at the time, it seemed like its reputation hasn't held up nearly as well as Mean Girls. This is why the film probably makes no sense to anyone who wasn't a teenager in 2004. The content hasn't changed, but the cult behavior around it has grown into 20-somethings.

This is most evident in the post-Napoleon Dynamite regime of these actors and director. Jared Hess had some career with quirky films like Nacho Libre and Gentlemen Broncos, though has done little since. Of the cast, Jon Heder has had the most interesting career. After brief success with Monster House and Blades of Glory, he hasn't done much of note. He is playing Roy Disney in the upcoming Walt Before Mickey, but it appears that he's unable to escape his guffawed persona. It isn't a bad thing, as he hadn't stopped working, but it has likely limited his potential beyond type casting.

Then of course there was that strange period in 2012 where Napoleon Dynamite attempted to join Fox's Animation Domination. It reunited the entire cast and attempted to live off of the charm, but through cartoons. Choosing to focus more on mystical elements and highlighting the absurd moments (a mattress race was the main theme of one episode). It was nice, but reflected the film's inability to age well. It could do weird things, but it was forever stuck as a cult hit that only people in that "Sweet!" spot were likely to appreciate. Of course, it doesn't hurt that it came in a time where Animation Domination also had the awful Allen Gregory in the mix.

As someone who was in the right age bracket, I personally enjoyed it a bit. Going back to the fact that it was a predominant gag on MySpace, it was one of the first unifying factors for me as a high school student. It connected people with the "Vote for Pedro" t-shirts and those countless lines. I have recited most of them in this post from memory despite having not seen the film in years. Admittedly, there is some charm in watching a film about an outcast more outcasted than yourself or the D.I.Y. ethics that come with limited resources. The film does have some charm, but has it held up? Beyond the idea that it is about a nerd who says quirky things, I don't think it has. Then again, it wasn't striving for a legacy. It was just a film that got caught in the middle of a zeitgeist.

So 10 years on, Napoleon Dynamite continues to baffle audiences, which may be its biggest success. While itself feeling like a nostalgic throwback, it now has the layered ability to have audiences have nostalgia for when the film was a hit. Thinking back, I remember the film fondly as one of the first few things that unified my age bracket on the internet and gave us something to talk about. Speaking that few indie comedies since have been able to do that (to a wider audience, anyways), that is quite a triumph. I am not entirely sure how or why that happened, but then again, my youth made no sense, just like this movie. Maybe its charm was in that. I don't know. But instead of meandering on, I will simply look back and say "Wow, you got like 10 feet of air that time."