Napoleon Dynamite Parent Guide

Quirky may be the best word to describe Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder). There’s certainly nothing conformist about the Preston, Idaho high school student with the curly red Afro, oversized glasses and moon boot footwear. But his peculiarities go beyond his looks.

Napoleon is different because he’s on the fringe of the social circle, yet he doesn’t seem to mind. Unlike so many teens who’d do anything to fit in, Napoleon seems casually comfortable with where he is. And that’s what makes him, above anything else, interesting to watch.

Whether Napoleon’s unconventional habits are the result of his genetics or environment, it’s hard to know. He lives with his grandmother (Sandy Martin) who has a pet llama and goes four wheeling. He also lives with his nerdy, 31-year-old unemployed brother Kip (Aaron Ruell) who spends hours in chat rooms searching for romance. Later, the boys’ Uncle Rico (Jon Gries) moves in as well.

Rico is one of those guys who may have graduated from high school but never really left it. He relishes his past glory days on the football field and still considers himself a buff young buck. As a door-to-door salesman, he has a rather adolescent enthusiasm for selling bust enhancing supplements.

Trying to avoid his uncle, Napoleon hangs out with his friends, Pedro (Efren Ramirez) and Deb (Tina Majorino), the neighbor girl who’s earning money for college by selling beaded key chains and shooting “glamour” portraits in her homemade studio. Deb’s unflappable personality and no-nonsense initiative provide a calm center in the circle of eccentric personalities buzzing around this movie.

Deciding they have nothing to lose, Napoleon and Deb agree to help Pedro when he decides to run for student body president against the popular Summer Wheatley (Haylie Duff). Surprisingly, it’s Napoleon’s unabashed eccentricity that proves to be a pivotal turning point in the campaign.

The biggest challenge with this film is trying to figure out if you’re laughing with Napoleon or laughing at him, which can be a bit unsettling. Often bullied at school and teased at home, he has experiences most of us can relate to - sometimes so intensely that it can have adult viewers cringing rather than laughing as they remember the social horrors of their own high school days. However parents might react to this unusual adolescent, we can hope that this movie gives young viewers a greater sense of empathy for their fellow classmates who might not fit in with the crowd. Whether it helps young viewers be more sympathetic to others or not remains to be seen. For family viewing, some mild innuendo and an emphatic substitute for swearing are likely the biggest beefs parents will have.

Meanwhile, for those of us who grew up in small towns where blue FFA jackets and long, bumpy bus rides were more common than bikinis and surfboards, it’s refreshing to see a familiar high school atmosphere portrayed.

About author

Kerry Bennett

Kerry Bennett is interested in media from both a journalist and parent perspective. Along with authoring articles for several family-oriented publications, she has written for Parent Previews for over 15 years. As a parent herself, she believes parents play a powerful role in teaching media literacy in their homes.