Comedies about oddballs or losers often reveal at some point that these oddballs and losers actually possess some hidden talent at which they excel, something that gains them the respect of their peers. No such luck for Napoleon Dynamite, the titular nerd of this new film, who fancies himself an artist but whose drawings are excruciatingly mediocre. On the positive side, he doesn't realize that they're bad. He tries to woo a girl to be his date at the school dance by sketching her portrait; the drawing is a hideous caricature, and on the back of it he's jotted a note: "I think this my best drawing ever."

Napoleon, played by Jon Heder, is steadfast in his ways and oblivious to his geekiness. He wear moon boots on a daily basis and tucks his t-shirts into his jeans too tightly. He's fond of magical creatures: his bedroom door bears a road sign warning of 'Pegasus Crossing,' and at one point he's seen drawing what he calls a Liger, which is a cross between a lion and a tiger. "It's pretty much my favorite animal ever," he explains.

He's so resolute in his odd ways that he never develops as a character; he's changed not a whit by the end of the movie, which works on a whole in a similar way: it's quirky for quirkiness's sake, and at first I resisted it. But in the same way something bad can be so bad that it becomes good, this movie is so quirky that its lack of any other point becomes a plus. There's no plot obstructions to keep it from coasting along on its own cloud nine of geekiness.

Here are some of the things that happen in the film. Napoleon befriends a new student named Pedro (Efren Ramirez) and is impressed by his supreme confidence in pursuing women, the fact that they all reject him notwithstanding; later, Pedro decides to run for school president and delivers a rather uninspiring speech. Napoleon's older brother Kip (Aaron Ruell), a spindly 30 year old chatroom addict, goes into business with their sleazy Uncle Rico (Jon Gries), sellign tuperwear and breast enhancement pills. Deb (Tina Majorino) another outcast student who pulls all her hair into one skewed pig tail and who may have a crush on Napoleon, tries to raise money for college by shooting glamour portraits in her bedroom. Intermittently, Napoleon feeds frozen steaks to his grandmother's llama.

The ridiculous nature of these situations are muted by the deadpan approach of director Jared Hess, who also wrote the script with his wife Jerusha. Only once do they throw in a gag that calls unnecessary attention to itself (it has to do with Kip's makeover towards the end of the film); otherwise, they maintain an objective stance that allows you to either laugh with the characters, or laugh at them. It's really up to you. Either way, you'll probably laugh, find the film memorable enough to tell your friends about, and they'll see it too; a few years from now, people may be quoting it and watching it at midnight screenings, and people like me, who at the moment merely think the film is good, might be overheard saying that it's great.