For Anyone Wanting a Vacation in a More Innocent Time, Consider a Trip to "Tapawingo"

Hey everyone,

I'm popping in for a little buzzer-beater post on this, the last day of the month.

Let's chat a little bit about "Tapawingo" (2024).

Before we proceed, I have one question for you: did you see "Napoleon Dynamite" (2004)?

If not, I would be genuinely fascinated to hear what you think about "Tapawingo", its clear and direct descendant 20 years on.  

If you haven't seen "Napoleon Dynamite", does the world and aesthetic of "Tapawingo" make any sense to you?  Does it hold any appeal?  Do you like it any more or less than I do, as someone who of course did not escape--nor want to--the juggernaut that was "Napoleon Dynamite", given that it arrived squarely in the middle of my college years, perfectly situating me smack in the middle of the developmental demographic most likely to adore that weird, goofy, instant cult classic-y yet harmless and charming little film?

Because not to brag, but I've seen "Napoleon Dynamite" many, many times, although long enough ago that I don't remember it super clearly by now.  In fact, my memory of the movie has reached that stage of fogginess in which I remember liking it, but I'm afraid to watch it again because doing so now, two decades after it was released and many years since last seeing it, risks spoiling it.

The trouble is, having seen "Napoleon Dynamite" absolutely negatively impacted my experience of "Tapawingo".  The newer film is so directly an extension of the Dynamite-o-verse, yet as I experienced it, it fails to capture whatever silly magic the original contained.  In "Tapawingo", the characteristic intentionally halting pace of the dialogue feels tedious.  The 1980s time capsule-y aesthetic is very well-executed but nothing new.  The soundtrack is packed in an attempt to give the movie some emotional oomph but ends up feeling too crowded and therefore kind of distracting rather than enhancing.

"Tapawingo" is admittedly funny and has heart in the same oddball way as "Napoleon Dynamite".  But part of what I remember being so compelling about the older movie was the fragility underlying the incongruous bravado of several of its central characters, including Pedro's student governmental aspirations, Uncle Rico's yearning for his ex-girlfriend, and the sweet, unlikely love between Kip and LaFawnduh (who miraculously actually exists!), and of course most obvious in Napoleon's socially bewildered loneliness.  While the characters in "Tapawingo" definitely exhibit similar ludicrous and mostly toothless grandiosity, I just didn't find myself caring about or believing in them as people in the same way as I did in "Napoleon Dynamite".

All that said, for any elder millennials or "Napoleon Dynamite" fans who could use a little time travel to the gentler era of the early 2000s, you could do worse than taking a trip to "Tapawingo".  I gave the movie a 3.

{Heart}