When I entered the cinema, I had absolutely no idea what to expect from Napoleon Dynamite. I didn’t know what it was about or who was in it. Some friends had recommended it, so I put my trust in them and consequently, ten minutes into the film, still had no idea what I was watching.

Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder) is the unlikely name of an unlikely leading character, a quintessential ‘nerd’ living in Preston. Idaho, a town in the middle of nowhere. He looks like a nerd with his Bill Gates glasses, T-shirt tucked into his 80′s jeans and his jeans tucked into his moon boots, but he never touches a computer and is more of a nerd in terms of his unpopularity at school. Who wouldn’t be unpopular when regularly standing in the corridor staring into space with drool slipping out of their open mouth?

This film doesn’t really seem to be about anything which is admittedly part of its charm. Napoleon struggles through his school days, trying to find a date for the dance and lives at home with his grandmother and older brother Kip. When his grandmother ends up in hospital after an unfortunate accident with a dune buggy, Uncle Rico (Jon Gries) is brought in to watch the ‘boys’ much to Napoleon’s disgust.

Kip is 32 and doesn’t mind Uncle Rico’s presence as he spends most of his day and night in online chat rooms, running up his grandmother’s phone bill. He proudly announces that he has a girlfriend, although he admits he still hasn’t received a full body shot from her. Uncle Rico (Jon Gries) is somewhat of a ‘medallion man’ who endlessly reminisces about 1982, the year in which he might have become a professional footballer, but didn’t. When he’s not selling tupperware or breast enlargements he videotapes himself throwing footballs outside his trailer.

Meanwhile, Napoleon’s only friends at school are Debby (Tina Majorino who you may recognize as little Molly from Corinna Corinna!) and Pedro (Efren Ramirez), a Mexican student who has perfected the art of the vacant stare. He decides to run for school president against the stereotypically blonde and popular, Summer. His campaign methods are hilarious to watch and culminate in the highlight of the film, Napoleon’s dance routine.

Napoleon Dynamite‘s characters and their lines are sometimes funny and often absurd, yet I caught myself wondering if this wasn’t perhaps more realistic than your average Hollywood film. Perhaps we are so unused to seeing true, boring reality on celluloid that it is erroneously classified as surreal or absurd. Napoleon Dynamite reminded me a little of Gummo in terms of small town boredom, but was funnier and less pretentious.

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