GLENN KENNY'S REVIEW (posted 6/23/04)


In the “Director's Statement” that was distributed to the press at the Sundance Film Festival's screenings of this movie, cowriter-director Jared Hess's feature debut, Hess recalls, “One day on the streets of Chicago, I met an old Italian man who had the best name I've ever heard of in my life: Napoleon Dynamite. I decided then that it would be the title of my first feature film.” Cute story, but a rather curious one to those of us who remember that the singer Elvis Costello was using the name Napoleon Dynamite as a playful alias back in 1986, when Hess was all of six years old. Well, maybe the old Italian guy was a big Costello fan. Or maybe Costello himself met the old Italian guy on the streets of Chicago and stole his name! Or maybe Hess is completely full of it!

I probably shouldn't be so hard on Hess—a superegoless instinct for self-promotion is something of a necessity for fledgling filmmakers today. The more germane issue is that, as catchy a movie title as it makes, Napoleon Dynamite is a rather inapt name for this picture's title character (played by newcomer Jon Heder), a swizzle-stick towhead teen
geek whose eyeglass frames are wider than his shoulders and whose open-mouthed gape is so constant that you'd be surprised he doesn't pull whole flies from between his teeth when he flosses. Like all of the other principals in this film, Napoleon is not unlike a cartoon character. And here's where the good news starts.

Contrary to any reports that the flat midwestern milieu and outlandish characters of this high-school—outcast—makes—sort-of-good movie bear any resemblance to the work of Todd Solondz or Wes Anderson or any other live-action filmmaker, Napoleon Dynamite is doing something completely different. While Solondz's world is a hell hole and Anderson's Rushmore is a place of high-toned and often poignant whimsy, Napoleon Dynamite's unceasing burlesque creates a world that is pretty much a cartoon—and it's a damn funny cartoon to boot. Its goofy characterizations and nonsensical sight gags may not hew to the Aristotelian unities, or have anything to do with The Way We Live Now (it's hard to believe, for example, that any high school in the country, be it in a red state or a blue one, is as thoroughly devoid of sexual intrigue as the one depicted here), but by golly, they did make me laugh. And as Roger Ebert once observed, when you're reviewing comedies, the only thing that really counts is whether they're funny. (I'll admit for the record that I thought Home Alone was pretty damn hilarious the first time I saw it.) Napoleon Dynamite is, finally, too funny for me to stay ticked off at—funny enough that I'll refrain from describing the gags that made me laugh, lest I spoil them for you.