Napoleon Dynamite ’s advertising and word-of-mouth campaign had me casting a wary eye at it as a more-Wes-Anderson-than-Wes-Anderson geek-chic fest. Never underestimate the power of low expectations: Napoleon Dynamite may at times resort to Midwestern condescension and little-guy-triumphs formulae, but its depiction of gawky adolescence is dead on. Jon Heder’s portrayal of Napoleon’s defensiveness is a spazzy palate of “God!”s and sudden bursts of running. When, toward film’s end, he unleashes his pent up frustration, finally breaking into a dance routine as timed to a perfectly-used Jamiroquai white-funk groove in front of his classmates, it’s nothing short of the most transcendent—albeit still hilarious—moment in teen cinema. One of the film’s fanciful, unabashedly implausible touches (was there ever a film more grounded in the quotidian that so often left you scratching your head for its sheer unreality, and a few too many times, stupidity?), it inferred onto both Heder and Napoleon instant cult status, and their deserved moment in the sun.

But returning to what endeared me, as well as so many others, to the film: I was surprised by its faithfulness to the unheralded weirdness of teen life, especially at a time when fidelity to truth seems to strangely equal an obsession with clichés of angst and misguidance (thirteen) or the perverse (pretty much anything by Todd Solondz). There’s nothing nearly as disingenuously titillating here. Even the character of Uncle Rico is unique: treating his longing for vanished glory days so tenderly, without sentimentality or mockery, the film at brief intervals achieves a true sadness. Those involved in the making of Napoleon Dynamite seem to have taken the ridiculous, self-serious melodrama of high school existence to heart, internalized it, and then rearranged its tropes into a pageantry of universal comic awkwardness. For instance, writers Jared and Jerusha Hess perfectly nail adolescence’s hyperbolic declarations with pitch-perfect dialogue: “I already made, like, infinity of those at Scout Camp”; “You have the worst reflexes of all time.” Art director Curt Jensen’s eye for middle-class decor (wood paneling, endless phone cords) also brings a nostalgic sting of recognition. I’ve never seen a film so accurately capture these details of high school life. You once lived in this world, too.