You Got Any Skills?

In the surprise hit film of 2004, Napoleon Dynamite, the title character speaks on multiple occasions of having “skills.” In one of the film’s more memorable scenes, there is a dialogue that includes this interchange:

Napoleon: "Well, nobody's gonna go out with me."
Pedro: "Have you asked anybody yet?"
Napoleon: "No, but who would?I don't even have any good skills."
Pedro: "What do you mean?"
Napoleon: "You know, like numchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills. Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills."

Napoleon Dynamite is an awkward teenage boy, rather homely in appearance and lacking many social graces. His insecurity is masked by a vivid imagination and a sour disposition. Evidence of the vivid imagination are these comments:

Don: "Hey, Napoleon, what'd you do all last summer again?"
Napoleon: "I told you! I spent it with my uncle in Alaska hunting wolverines!"
Don: "Did you shoot any?"
Napoleon: "Yes, like 50 of 'em! They kept trying to attack my cousins. what the heck would you do in a situation like that?"
Don: "What kind of gun did you use? "
Napoleon: "A frickin' 12-gauge, what do you think?"

And …

"You know, there's like a butt-load of gangs at this school. This one gang kept wanting me to join 'cause I'm pretty good with a bo-staff."

The sour disposition is evident from the first scene of the film on the school bus:

Kid On Bus: "What are you gonna do today, Napoleon?"
Napoleon Dynamite: "Whatever I feel like I wanna do, Gosh!"

As I watched this film, I was constantly wondering why this boy’s attitude was so sour. It was a very annoying feature of the film. I would speculate that there was some incident in his past involving his parents, for he lives with his brother and grandmother, and the transient Uncle Rico. My speculations are unimportant. Certainly, beneath the heavy layer of fantastic imagination and negative demeanor is a boy who feels as if he has nothing to contribute to the world at large, because he is lacking in skills.

Pedro seeks to encourage Napoleon, saying, “Aren't you pretty good at drawing, like, animals and warriors and stuff?” Napoleon responds, “Yes. Probably the best that I know of.” We the viewers who have peered over Napoleon’s shoulder as he penciled sketches of Ligers and other mystical, mythical creatures, are taken aback by the confident assertion. Soon Napoleon learns that drawing can be added to numchucks, bow hunting, and computer hacking, as yet one more thing which is NOT his skill.

In the end, Napoleon Dynamite, it seems does have a skill. He is a friend. In this day and time, that skill is becoming rarer than numchuck proficiency or cage fighting. And young people who might have this skill are often like Napoleon Dynamite. They hide that skill beneath layers of cynicism, fantasy, and mistaken notions of what it means to be cool. After spending most of the movie resisting nausea because of the lead character, at film’s end I found myself envious of him. Napoleon Dynamite has a skill I covet. He knows how to be a friend to the friendless. And that skill is much like Another Person I know: Jesus Christ who became a friend of sinners for our redemption. If I could be more like Him, that would be flippin’ sweet.