Napoleon Dynamite 15th Anniversary

During the mid-2000s, I was living and working in a small, Idaho farm town called Twin Falls. As isolated and rural as it was, the city had an art house movie theater called the Lamphouse. It struggled to bring in customers with foreign films and experimental movies, and it faced stiff competition from the local multiplex that brought in all the blockbusters. But then June 2004 rolled around, and at least for that summer, things changed. The Lamphouse got a little indie comedy that was made for about 400 thousand dollars and happened to have been filmed in Preston, Idaho, just a couple of hours to the east. Napoleon Dynamite was the hit of the summer and kept the second-hand bucket seats in the Lamphouse filled until almost October. This summer marks the fifteenth anniversary of Napoleon Dynamite, the little indie comedy that could. 

Starring Jon Heder, Tina Majorino, Efren Ramirez, and Jon Gries, Napoleon Dynamite was utterly unexpected. At first glance, it wasn’t clear if the film was mocking its title character and the world he occupied. The whole story was so utterly deadpan, it was hard to tell exactly how we were supposed to react. And in fact, the first time I saw it, I didn’t laugh much at all. But the second, third, and fourth times I saw it in the theater, nearly every moment brought me to hysterics. Every line from Napoleon’s constantly half-open mouth was funny. Everything from “Tina, you fat lard” to “I like your sleeves. They’re real big” has entered my family’s personal vernacular. Just the other night, my nine year old passed through the room looking for lip balm saying, “My lips hurt real bad!” Multiple viewings revealed that Napoleon Dynamite wasn’t mocking the strange, insular world it depicted, but instead the film is affectionate and compassionate.

If we had to boil it down to something identifiably Hollywood, we could say it’s an underdog story, with Napoleon and his partner-in-tater-tots Pedro clinching the student body presidency with Napoleon’s sweet dance moves in front of the entire school. But the film doesn’t feel that formulaic or predictable at all. With its weird asides into chicken farms, second-hand clothing stores, and Pedro’s still inexplicable head-shaving incident, the movie stays just weird enough that it surprises audiences throughout its entirety.

I love Napoleon’s oddness and how the film champions the unlikely and even the absurd. There’s no explanation for why Napoleon’s last name is Dynamite or why his family has a pet llama in the field next to the house. There’s no logical reason why Lafawnduh from Detroit would fall in love with scrawny, nerdy, would-be cage-fighter Kip. It doesn’t make a ton of sense that “I caught you a delicious bass” and a game of tether ball would be the way to a girl’s heart. And yet the final sequence of the film set to Patrick Street’s wonderful instrumental “Music for a Found Harmonium” reconciles all of it. We see Grandma Dynamite reunited and nuzzling with her beloved Tina, Kip and LaFawndah getting on the bus to go start their life together, and Napoleon and Deb high fiving after their tether ball game. Things work out. There’s love and reconciliation for everyone. Every weirdo has another weirdo who appreciates them. Even vainglorious and deluded Uncle Rico seems to get a second chance at finding his soulmate in the final moments of the film.

I was so glad when the Lamphouse got the windfall of having Napoleon Dynamite for almost four months straight. Of all the movies that could have helped that strange, incongruous little business to continue on, it’s fitting that it was this one – a love letter to weirdos, individualists, and the unlikely. We are all a little Napoleon or Deb or Rico or maybe even Rex Kwon Do on the inside, and it’s nice to know that there are others just like us and that there’s love and hope for all.