Napoleon Dynamite
Grade:
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Plot Summary:
Plot? Vhat eez thees "plot" you speek of?
Opinion:
First, a tangent...
(Wait...is it still a tangent if I
start with it? Never mind...)
There's a right way and a wrong way to tell funny stories. For example, compare and contrast the following experiences involving missionaries in the MTC:
(A) MTC Teacher: "...and then Alma and Amulek returned to the land of Zarahemla." [puts down his book] "You know, that reminds of a funny story from my mission. One day, my companion and I were riding our bikes to an appointment, and..."
(B) MTC Teacher A: "...and then the servants gathered the severed arms and brought them back to the king." [puts down his book while MTC Teacher B enters]
Teacher A: "Hey...have you told my class the 'Bicycle Story' yet?"
Teacher B: "Nope...I haven't yet--but if I tell it to them now, they'll be
laughing so hard they won't focus on the lessons the rest of the day."
Teacher A: "Aw...that's too bad." [turns to class] "You guys are missing out! The 'Bicycle Story' is
one of the funniest mission stories you'll ever hear. When he told it to my other class, a couple of elders almost threw up, they were
laughing so hard!"
Teacher B: "Actually, I'm thinking we should film it the next time I tell it so we have a record of it. I'm just worried people will be
laughing so hard we won't be able to hear the words on the tape..."
Teacher A: "I know...why don't you make the story a
reward to the class for working hard at learning Chinese?"
Teacher B: "Good idea!" [turns to class] "Okay, elders, if you work
really hard for the next two weeks at SYLing [Speaking Your Language] I'll come back and tell you the 'Bicycle Story' as a reward..."
(No points for guessing which of the two really happened when I was in the MTC...)
Note that in both cases the story itself is exactly the same. But just imagine how the experience hearing the story changes after having either (A) or (B) as a 'prelude'. As it happened, we really did work hard for the two weeks, with all the teachers reminding us daily about how
funny the story was going to be and to keep working hard. Finally, the time came and Teacher B gave us our 'reward'...and, looking back, what happened was probably pretty predictable--we were underwhelmed to say the least. ("We waited for two weeks to hear...THAT???")
Problem #1 was that Teacher B committed the first cardinal sin of telling stories (
"Never laugh at your own story while you're telling it") and Problem #2 was...well, you know--no story is THAT funny. Had he simply just started
telling us the story the first day without prefacing it with anything (and not made us wait for two weeks to tell us as a 'reward') the experience would probably have been much better--simply because we weren't
expecting anything at that point. Once you've raised expectations--especially to the extent that they were in the case of the "Bicycle Story"--the likelihood of disappointment is so much greater.
(It's similar to guys you know who have a new girlfriend and are constantly telling you, "Just
wait until you meet her--she's
absolutely the most gorgeous girl you'll ever meet!" I don't know...I can think of some pretty gorgeous girls... Why not just
introduce her without saying anything and let us decide how pretty she is ourselves?)
"Napoleon Dynamite" does a lot of things right--one of which is not laughing at its own jokes. (In fact, I'm hard pressed to remember any single character actually laughing at
anything at any point of the entire movie...) But the problem (if it's a problem at all) is not the movie itself, but the massive marketing campaign and 'buzz' that has surrounded it since it started making splashes in the independent film festival circuit earlier in the year.
Napoleon Dynamite is at its heart an independent art film--one that is shown to smaller, more selective, audiences and is not meant for wide release. After it's initial success, though, and the massive ad campaign started ("One of the funniest movies of the year!") and the word-of-mouth from people who had seen it started ("You've GOT to see it! It is SO funny!") that a backlash was probably inevitable, simply because this movie is not made for a wide audience. The subset of the population who would really find this movie funny is (I have to imagine) very small, and the result of the hype is probably going to be a lot of people watching this and thinking "What the heck? This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen..." You can't blame the filmmakers for wanting to attract the most people possible to their movie, (and, you know, make more money too...) but even they would have to admit that their film is not for everyone.
Anyway, back to the movie, one of the biggest assets "Napoleon Dynamite" has is the deadpan way the characters move from scene to scene, totally oblivious to their own idiocy and to anything remotely funny or amusing going on. There is no obvious
setup/punch line/pause for the laughtrack to kick in sitcom-style mugging here--you could almost say there are no 'jokes' in ND at all. If you happen to find something that happened funny, great! But the movie has already moved on to the next scene without waiting for you.
The three main actors (Napoleon, Pedro, and Deb) are note-perfect in their roles, both in looks and delivery. Their deadpan style of speaking their lines, in fact, pushes some of the dialogue from 'normal and uninteresting' to 'absurdly amusing' (Note, for example, the scene at the dance where Napoleon asks Pedro and Deb "Are you having the time of your lives?" and both reply "Yes" in just the perfect tone of voice. Note also Pedro's speech at the class assembly where he tells everyone, in total deadpan: "Vote for me...(pause)...and your wildest dreams...(pause)...will come true.")
Truth be known, neither the Baroness nor I really
laughed at ND much--yet both of us still enjoyed it on its own merits. My wife had never heard of the movie (or the hype surrounding it) before we watched it and went in with a 'clean slate'. I myself, having had the earlier "Bicycle Story" experience, thought: "There's no way the movie is really going to be THAT funny". And it
wasn't...but (ironically)
expecting to be disappointed in a way was what kept me from
being disappointed (if that makes sense...) Keeping the expectations in check is, I think, the first requirement towards enjoying Napoleon Dynamite on any level. This is a not a
great movie--but one that deserves a chance to sneak up on you (if that's possible now, given the media exposure) and leave you thinking afterwards: "You know,
that wasn't too bad..."
Content Analysis: (PG)
A lot of "Mormon swear words" here, but not much else. This movie is about as clean as you can get, unless you find discussion of herbal remedies to increase breast size to be offensive...
In-depth Analysis:
Humor is a funny thing: it's almost entirely dependant on the individual...yet I think there are psychological factors that can come into play as well.
Take the following joke, for example:
Q: What do you get when you cross an insomniac, an agnostic, and a dyslexic person?
A: Someone who stays up all night wondering if there is a Dog.
Part of the 'humor' (if any) in a joke like this comes just from 'getting' it. If you happen to know what the words 'insomniac', 'agnostic' and 'dyslexic' mean, you can figure out the punchline--and part of the 'enjoyment' of such a joke comes from being smart enough to understand what the joke is in the first place. That's why explaining a joke after it's been told
never works--because you've just removed the enjoyment from figuring out the joke on your own. Some of the best jokes are those which the mental 'thrill' of figuring out what the joke is equals (or exceeds) any actual 'humor' value.
This 'ego soothing' role of humor can be seen in the emphasis in 'stupid' humor in both movies and TV shows. Characters saying and doing stupid things has been a staple of TV and film comedies for decades. (Homer Simpson comes to mind immediately, but there are many other examples...) Why is 'stupid' humor such a common and effective comedy technique? Because it has that same dual attraction--it's inherently funny on one level, and on another the average person can laugh and think, "I'm
so much smarter than he is." A lot of comedy appeals both to a person's sense of pride and/or vanity as well as to the funny bone. Would "Seinfeld" have been half as funny if the four main characters weren't obviously all total losers?
I think that is one of the primary reasons a lot of people have found Napoleon Dynamite to be funny--the characters in ND are almost universally backwards, uneducated losers. You can laugh at their antics (like the incident with the online 'time machine'), and then subconsciously be thinking "I'm so much smarter (and socially adept) than they are...that's why I can laugh at them because they're not like me at all!"
Even things that aren't 'funny' in the movie (Napoleon getting dumped within minutes of taking a date to the dance might bring up painful memories for some...) can be enjoyed just for the 'self-esteem' aspect ("I thought my life stunk...but compared to
him, things are going pretty well for me, after all!"). This is one of the reasons many people like watching soap operas and depressing movies--it makes your own life look great in comparison.
So, perhaps that's Napoleon Dynamite (the character)'s main attraction: He's somewhat likable, yet hopelessly backwards--enough to let you root for him, while feeling superior to him at the same time...
Random Notes and Comments:
(1) "The Blair Witch Project" is a good example of an independant "art-house" film that created a big buzz in film festivals...which caused it be given a wide release with lots of hype (and overhype)...which caused it to draw in people who just weren't in its target audience...which caused an inevitable backlash ("That's it? This is the most overrated piece of trash I've ever seen!") Last year's "Lost in Translation" had a similar experience--going from 'underrated' to 'overrated' within a few months.
(2) One thing I'm not quite clear on: why did Trisha's mom make her go to the dance with Napoleon? She wasn't friends with the family, and it didn't seem to have anything to do with Uncle Rico's sales pitch. Maybe they have just one of those families that says you should never say no to a guy who asks you out for any reason. I'll let the viewer decide, given what happened to Napoleon at the dance, whether this philosophy is better for the guy involved or not...
(3) Another thing I must have missed: who's the girl who came and visited Uncle Rico at his 'campsite' at the end? I didn't recognize her from earlier in the movie...
(4) One of my favorite gags of the movie lasts less than a second--a 'blink-and-you'll-miss-it' shot of Napoleon and Pedro putting a campaign poster inside of a urinal. A lesser movie would have extended the scene out to make it more obvious--mugging for laughs, essentially. Kudos to the filmmakers for leaving it as it was for whomever happened to notice it, and going on immediately to other things...
