Napoleon Dynamite Details

Like the central character's bizarre name, there's something self-consciously quirky about this whimsical tale of a super-nerd's small-town life. Apparently set in the present day, but with a distinctive, time-warp look that recalls the style-challenged 1980s, this episodic comedy follows the eponymous Napoleon (Jon Heder), a blank-faced teen with carrot-coloured hair and seriously underdeveloped interpersonal skills, as he tries to help equally nerdish best friend Pedro (Efren Ramirez) win the school elections. Heder's performance is entertainingly eccentric, while the supporting characters — a computer-geek older brother and an ageing jock uncle, who's still stuck in 1982, the year his high-school football career was abruptly curtailed — are amusing enough though a tad one-dimensional. Nevertheless, there are some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, an uplifting ending and the limited horizons of young people in small-town America are perceptively conveyed, not least by the impressive Idaho vistas.

Deadpan comedy of social misfits sleepwalking through life, taken at a slow and soporific pace. The humour, such as it is, comes from the contrast between the characters' view of themselves and the chill reality.