Tracy Flick is running unopposed for this year’s high school student election. But Jim McAllister has a different plan. Partly to establish a more democratic election, and partly to satisfy some deep personal anger toward Tracy, Jim talks football player Paul Metzler to run for president as well.
"Reading. Writing. Revenge."
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Wuchak
9/14/2018
6 / 10
Amusing and compelling high school dramedy with Broderick and Witherspoon
When a high achiever student (Reese Witherspoon) runs for president of the student body at her Omaha high school one of her teachers (Matthew Broderick) encourages an amiable jock to run against her (Chris Klein) because he finds her irritating.
“Election” (1999) is a quirky high school dramedy in the mold of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982), but with a unique plot revolving around a school election. It’s not raunchy like the contemporaneous “American Pie” (except for one line by a teacher early on), but it is adult-oriented as there are several simulated sex scenes between various characters with no nudity. While they’re overt, they’re sorta amusing and fairly essential to the story.
This is a must for anyone who’s a high school teacher as it understatedly satirizes the setting. The flick shows how easy it is for a good teacher with years of quality work to make a thoughtless mistake and suddenly fall out of grace. Yet it also shows redemption. Of course the film pokes fun at the election process and the rivalry of candidates, etc. There are a 2-3 laugh-out-loud scenes with Spaghetti Western music blaring (specifically, Ennio Morricone’s score from 1966’ "Navajo Joe").
Witherspoon is perfect as the female protagonist (although her face looks like Drew Barrymore on the poster), but I never found her alluring. I suppose Frankie Ingrassia (Lisa) and Jessica Campbell (Tammy) make up for it despite the eye-rolling lesbian component, which isn’t very substantive.
The film runs 1 hour, 43 minutes and was shot in the Omaha, Nebraska, area (Papillion, Bellevue, LaVista, etc.) and, at the end, Washington DC.
GRADE: B-
<em>'Election'</em> builds relatively slowly though really does become a fun movie by its conclusion. It's most definitely worth a watch.
Matthew Broderick is excellent throughout, as are the likes of Reese Witherspoon and Chris Klein. The films goes to some unexpected places and manages to make it work. And there's a great callback in there too. I will say that I didn't love the internal monologue bits, but they didn't derail the film for me in any major way.
This early outing for Reese Witherspoon ("Tracy Flick") sees her desperate to become class President in her high school. Clever, ruthless and determined - she takes on all comers in her quest for success, and woe betide anyone who gets in her way. Happily hapless teacher Matthew Broderick is charged with overseeing the election campaign, and conscious that his front-runner is a bit of a nightmare manages to convince recently injured school hottie "Paul" (Chris Klein) to stand against her. Though he be thick as two short planks, he is a formidable challenge for "Flick" as most of the school don't appear to be too bright, either... and the fight is on. Her scheming machinations and his attempts to foil her ambitions make for quite a fun 100 minutes. The dialogue can be a bit earthy at times, but don't, whatever you do, look for plot complexities nor a thought-provoking script - except, perhaps, in addressing the odiousness of blind ambition and perhaps, 30 years later - it sends us a gentle reminder that if we all just sleep through our respective democratic processes then we will get people like this really running the place.... Klein is quite good as the nice-but-dim "Paul" too!
