When we first see the title character of Jared Hess’ first feature film Napoleon Dynamite he is slouching, squinty and disaffected, in front of his house, waiting for the school bus. The lanky high schooler sighs as the bus pulls up. He boards. He is a gangly, moon-boot wearing high school kid on a bus full of elementary aged students. He moves to the back of the bus and throws himself into the last seat. The kid in the seat next to him asks, “What are you gonna do today, Napoleon?” Napoleon sighs, says testily, “Whatever I feel like I wanna do, gosh!”

Napoleon Dynamite, as played by Jon Heder, is the epitome of studied, geeky purposelessness. Napoleon slouches, sighs, exhales sharply; in the opening titles we see books checked out to Napoleon that have titles like Bigfoot and Me and Sciences and Centaurs. Napoleon’s room is decorated with posters of wolves and mythical animals. He wears thrift store t-shirts and eighties-era Hammer pants. The juxtaposition of Napoleon with the elementary school students on his bus brings a subtle point into sharp focus; Napoleon is not, technically, a kid any more, but he’s also not the “typical” high school student. His imagination runs wild, and he believes his own hype. (“I’m pretty good with a bow staff”, he tells his new friend Pedro, played by Efren Ramirez.)

Part of Napoleon Dynamite's charm as a film is that it isn’t reaching for a great message – it’s not a typical “teen comedy” because it isn’t crude, it isn’t cruel toward its characters, and it doesn’t try to classify them or judge them based on their looks or social standing. Although we see Napoleon getting beaten up at a few different points, and the “popular” kids frequently chuckle at him or roll their eyes, Pedro and Deb (Tina Majorino) are not openly mocked and seem perfectly comfortable in themselves. What is so fascinating about the social and comedic structure of the film is its episodic nature and its ensemble cast – these elements are critical to the way the film allows the audience to identify with so many of the characters and to be able to laugh at (and with) them all.

Napoleon, Deb, and Pedro are outsiders at their high school; the kids that nobody else talks to and the kids that get ditched at the big dance. There is one shot during the “big dance” sequence that is particularly evocative of what this experience feels like; the trio stand, backs to the camera, and we watch them watching their peers. They are unified in their outcast status, and yet, it doesn’t seem to bother them as much as it might. When Uncle Rico, on his sales job, approaches Deb with the false angle that Napoleon thinks she might be interested in herbal breast enhancement, Deb immediately phones Napoleon. “I don’t need herbal enhancers to feel good about myself,” she tells him sharply; her words ring true because we have consistently seen that Deb feels empowered by her creativity, and ambitiously pursues the creative outlets that mean the most to her, such as her Glamour Shots business and her “boondoggle key chains”. Deb and Pedro are both self-guided, motivated characters who seek to achieve their goals in their own ways, and in Deb’s case these goals have little to do with the social acceptance of her peers.

The past ten years or so have given rise to something of a “Geek Wave” in American cinema – films such as Ghost World, Welcome to the Dollhouse, and Wes Anderson’s Rushmore have celebrated quirky and eccentric teen protagonists who are coming of age in an America that can often feel too “branded” and polished. These characters are a far cry from the heroes of such films as 1984’s Revenge of the Nerds -- a film in which the “nerds” win, but are nonetheless caricatures of what a mainstream audience at the time (and, likely, today) would identify as a “nerd”. In “Geek Wave” films such as these, the characters are individuals that are free from the need to be portrayed as comic extremes.

The dot-com bubble of the nineties brought “geek culture” into the foreground; technology and gadgets are now “cool” in a mainstream sense, and many other aspects of culture that were once “too nerdy” are finding their way into the cultural mainstream. (Witness the recent rise of blockbuster motion pictures based on comic books, video games, and sci-fi/fantasy literature, three areas that were once solely the domain of the “nerd”.) In “Geek Wave” films, the protagonists frequently feel their exclusion from their cooler, more popular peers, but they do not see changing themselves or their interests in order to fit in as an option or solution. They often take overt pride in being different, and although their behavior can occasionally turn toward misanthropy or depression, they stay the course and stay true to themselves. While films such as Rushmore and Ghost World present this as a struggle that can be overcome through personal confidence or refusal to accept the world of more “popular” kids as the world they want to live in, Todd Solondz presents a much darker world in his film Welcome to the Dollhouse. Dawn Wiener, the heroine, is irrepressibly herself, and yet she agonizes over why her peers dislike her and when they will accept her for who she is. This is a trait that sets Dawn apart from characters like Max Fischer (Rushmore) and Enid and Rebecca of Ghost World, who make no apologies for who they are and who are content to be themselves regardless of what the world at large has to say about them.

The characters in Napoleon Dynamite take this attitude one step further; they frequently seem oblivious to the attitudes of their peers. They are optimistic in that they understand that who they are is simply that – who they are, and who they will be. They accept themselves, and eventually their classmates seem to embrace them for their differences. The same is true for Napoleon’s brother Kip (Aaron Ruell), who finds that his internet chat room love interest LaFawnduh (Shondrella Avery), is truly his “soul mate” – the person that enables him to express himself freely.

Although Napoleon is, in some ways, the last to realize that even he has “skills”, as he puts it, that people will respect and enjoy, it is his climactic dance sequence that gels the message of the film. Napoleon dances for the school so that Pedro can continue his bid for class president (without a skit, Pedro will lose the election for sure), and the dance sequence is the triumphant high point of the film. Napoleon’s lack of self-consciousness in dance is what wins the rest of the school over, and in the end, it is the fact that these characters are relentlessly themselves that makes the film feel so upbeat and refreshing.

Although Napoleon Dynamite is often tremendously funny thanks to its smart writing, geeky non-sequitur sensibility, and outstanding performances, it does run the risk of appearing cynically “hipper than thou”. This is largely the product of an intense marketing scheme on the part of the studio (Fox Searchlight Pictures, in conjunction with MTV Films), and is most apparent in the trailers for the film which feature Jon Heder as Napoleon discussing how much “everyone in the whole universe loves my movie”. The website for the film cashes in on the kitschy look of the film through original music clips and retro-inspired backgrounds, and is misleading about the open, optimistic tenor of the film itself – making the film seem to be more about a false kind “geek cool” than it really is. If the viewer approaches the film with this sentiment in mind, it is easy to interpret the film as an invitation to poke fun at Napoleon and the rest of the cast. When viewed with a more open interpretation, and taking cues from the film’s soundtrack (“I can tell we are going to be friends,” sing The White Stripes in the film’s opening titles music), it would seem that the intent of the film makers was a gentle, more optimistic take on the story.

What lies at the heart of this difference in interpretation can also be seen as part of the film’s appeal – since the movie lacks a true, overriding plot, it leaves itself open to several different readings and interpretations. It can seem coy and cynical, or light-hearted and uplifting depending on the mood of the viewer. This facet of the film can be either a strength or a weakness, however given that the ending sequence of the film shows us happy moments of hope for all of the major characters in the film, it would seem that the optimistic view should win out.

Napoleon Dynamite represents a promising start to the writing and directing career of Jared Hess and his wife and writing partner Jerusha. The financial and relative critical success of the movie should lead to more projects from this inventive team, and may help to cement the “Geek Wave” as a driving force in American cinema. It would be a pleasing turn of events to see fewer films aimed at movie-goers in their late adolescence that revolve around changing yourself and your appearance to gain the respect and admiration of your peers. Can it be that “Cinderella stories” are on the way out and a new self-acceptance is on the way in? Hopefully, if more films like Napoleon Dynamite are released and successfully marketed, American audiences will have a new wave of positive messages, and more films that are as eccentrically funny as this one is.