Film · Prime Video · 2004
Napoleon Dynamite
Odd, local, and kinder than its deadpan. A small yes.
Napoleon is not cool and the film does not rescue him into coolness. It lets him be strange in a town of strange people, and it lets Kip and Pedro and Deb be people rather than lessons. The dance at the assembly is embarrassing and it is an act of friendship. That is enough plot.
Some of the humor is 'look at these hicks.' More of it, if you stay, is affection. A teenager who feels unfit can use it. It will not teach ambition. It teaches showing up in a bad shirt for someone else's speech.
The eight
Industry
4/10
Chapstick, a sign, a tetherball. The work is small and local.
Household
5/10
A grandmother, a brother, a house of leftovers. They are still a family.
Piety
2/10
A llama and a youth group, lightly.
Courage
7/10
He dances in front of the school for Pedro.
Republic
5/10
A class election in a real high school, not a mythic one.
Temperance
6/10
No one is rewarded for cruelty. Status loses.
Truth
7/10
The film does not pretend he becomes someone else.
Stewardship
6/10
A friend is the thing he has at the end.
Live historicallyDance, or show up, for a friend who is about to be humiliated. Once.