Expert: April - 4/4/2005

Question
Hi there. I was wondering if you could help us. My friends and I have been watching Napoleon Dynamite (quite possibly the most pointless movie ever) almost every day since it came out on DVD. For the life of us though, we cannot figure out when the story was supposed to have taken place. We originally thought it was present day but after seeing it a billion times we are sure this cannot be the case. All of the kids (even the so called cool ones) are wearing clothes that seem to be from the early 90s. Hopefully you can tell us the answer to this very lame question that just keeps munching on our brains! Thanks!!!!

Answer
It's my thinking that it is present day (for the most part) The clothing seems to be from the early 90's, and Nap probably dresses that way due to his situation. Perhaps the writers wanted to make everything seem more "innocent". i.e. no big fancy cars (outside of Napoleon's ride), there aren't any flashy cell phones that we see, tho we do hear one, in Uncle Rico's van. However, isn't one of the large ones from the 90's, but seems to be a recent small flippy type. Having said all this, my feeling is that the film is set in modern times, with an influence on the way things used to be. (Perhaps a movie made for conservatives)

This is one of those questions where there is no real definitive answer.  In my research, I could find no "real proof" of when the film took place.