The movie is often considered an 'honorary' Mormon film. The filmmakers themselves, Idaho natives, went on to make Nacho Libre with Jack Black. It was the breakout role of Jon Heder, who plays the title character and has gone on to mainstream roles alongside stars like Will Ferrell and Billy Bob Thornton. The movie aims to be as deadpan awkward as possible, and the results have caused quite a bit of Hype Backlash for those who expected a regular teen comedy. Kip, meanwhile, joins in Uncle Rico's various get-rich-quick schemes to be able to meet up with LaFawnduh, a girl from Detroit he talks to in an online chat room on dialup. A running theme is a mild quasi-romance between Napoleon and Deb, a girl who is even less socially capable than Napoleon.Īdditionally, Napoleon and his unemployed brother Kip are forced to host their Uncle Rico, a former high school football player trying to find a way to travel back to 1982 so he can win the big game and become an NFL star. Early on, Napoleon meets new student Pedro, and the two of them begin searching for dates for the upcoming school dance, where Pedro sees a flyer for the school election and decides to run for class president with Napoleon as his campaign manager. The film has its setups and payoffs, but is very much a Random Events Plot: anything that would be a big deal in most high school films is very deliberately downplayed. People don't like him and he doesn't like people. The eponymous Napoleon is not just a nerd - he's a real genuine dork, not particularly skilled at anything, angry at the world, incapable of even the most basic friendly conversation, and a mouth-breather to boot.

The atmosphere of Napoleon Dynamite is peculiar, with downplayed humor, quiet absurdism, largely unrelatable and awkward characters, and deliberately stilted dialogue - but at the film's core, it's a very intelligent and optimistic portrayal of high school life. The film became legendary for making audiences laugh at the Sundance Film Festival, and subsequently became a huge hit with the teenage crowd of the 2000s, resulting in a cult following similar to teen movies of the 1980s.

It's a subdued and sweet little cult film, telling the story of a trio of friends and their attempts to overcome their status as social outcasts. Napoleon Dynamite is a 2004 independent movie directed by Jared Hess and distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and MTV Films. Opening lines of the movie note He's not kidding.

Kip napoleon dynamite