Napoleon Dynamite
Director: Jared Hess
- Jeremy Coon: Film Editor, Producer
- Jared Hess: Writer, Director
- Jerusha Hess: Writer
From the DVD cover:
"Napoleon Dynamite is a new kind of hero, complete with a tight 'fro, sweet moon boots, and skills that can't be topped. Napoleon spends his days drawing mythical beasts, duking it out with his brother Kip and avoiding his scheming Uncle Rico. When two new friends enter Napoleon's life--shy Deb and mustachioed Pedro--the trio launches a campaign to elect Pedro for class president and make the student body's wildest dreams come true. But if Pedro is to beat stuck-up Summer, Napoleon will have to unleash his secret weapon..."
Best Movie, MTV Movie Award 2005; nine other wins and eighteen nominations
See Mormon Film: Key Films of the Fifth Wave
Peluca, the short black and white film on which Napoleon Dynamite is based, was shot in Preston, Idaho over a single weekend by a few BYU students like Jared Hess and actor Jon Heder in early 2002. It proved popular at the student film festival Final Cut, and Hess and after graduation Hess and his wife Jerusha decided to make a feature. Scrapped together for $400,000, Napoleon Dynamite proved a surprise hit at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. It was picked up by Fox Searchlight, Twentieth-Century Fox's classics division, and went on to gross $44.5 million in domestic box office alone, making instant celebrities of Hess and its stars.
Though there is no LDS content more explicit than a Rick's College t-shirt or a trip to the local Deseret Industries, many Latter-day Saint film enthusiasts have claimed it as their own and extensively discussed it as a model for LDS filmmaking, particularly in crossing-over. For their part, Hess, Heder and the others have moved on to other mainstream projects; the only participant to return to something with even a slightly Mormon flare is nonMormon actress Tina Majorino, who has a recurring role as the LDS friend Heather Tuttle on HBO's series Big Love.
DVDMM 251
January 2004
USA
English
Mormon Contributor(s)
Jon Heder - Napoleon Dynamite; Jon Gries - Uncle Rico; Aaron Ruell - Kip; Efren Ramirez - Pedro Sanchez; Tina Majorino - Deb
MPAA: PG
Narrative Film; No Obvious Mormon Elements
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Commercial Theaters
95 min.
35mm color
He's out to prove he's got nothing to prove.