Election (DVD)

...against Tracy.
It’s election time in the school again, an election that Tracy has won for the past few years and is running for again this year – she’s a guaranteed winner, seeing as she’s the only competitor! Fed up of seeing Tracy always get what she wants, McAllister persuades injured school sports star Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) to run against her.
When Paul’s lesbian sister Tammy’s girlfriend dumps her and starts dating him instead, ...
...Paul by running for the election herself.
Not being used to the competition, Tracy gets upset and goes a little mad, while McAllister is backing Paul and trying to secure votes for him behind everyone’s backs. Meanwhile, there’s an odd subplot to add to all this – McAllister has just started an affair with his best friend’s (the teacher who got fired) ex-wife…
During the election speeches, Tammy wins the crowd over and looks set to ... more

Before the days of Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon starred in some dark and obscure movies, this being one of the lesser known ones – Election, co-starring Matthew Broderick and Chris Klein, and from Alexander Payne, who went on to write and direct About Schmidt.
From the poster, which features a picture of Reese winking with Matthew Broderick in her mouth, this looks quite a happy, cheery teen movie but it’s definitely of the dark comedy genre, and is more a political satire than the teen movie it’s made out to be.

■■ Technical Details ■■
Year: 1999.
Cert: 15
Time Running: 103 Minutes
Director: Alexander Payne.

■■ Cast ■■
Tracy Flick – Reese Witherspoon (Legally Blonde, Pleasantville)
Jim McAllister – Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Godzilla)
Paul Metzler – Chris Klein (American Pie, We Were Soldiers)
Tammy Metzler – Jessica Campbell (The Safety Of Objects, Junk)
Diane McAllister – Molly Hagen (The Dentist, The Shoot Divas, Don’t They?)
Dave Novotny – Mark Harelik (Jurassic Park 3)
Linda Novotny – Delaney Driscoll (Citizen Ruth)
Principal Walt Hendricks – Phil Reeves (About Schmidt)

■■ Plot ■■
Reese Witherspoon plays Tracy Flick, the over achieving high school girl who’s on every school club or council going, and always gets the best grades, although she’s lonely and doesn’t have many friends. But there’s a darker side to Tracy as well, she had an affair with her teacher, who consequently lost his job and his wife and child left him.
Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) is Tracy’s current teacher, and also the best friend of the teacher who got fired because of her, and he now bears quite a grudge against Tracy.
It’s election time in the school again, an election that Tracy has won for the past few years and is running for again this year – she’s a guaranteed winner, seeing as she’s the only competitor! Fed up of seeing Tracy always get what she wants, McAllister persuades injured school sports star Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) to run against her.
When Paul’s lesbian sister Tammy’s girlfriend dumps her and starts dating him instead, Tammy (Jessica Campbell) vows revenge and decides to make a fool out of Paul by running for the election herself.
Not being used to the competition, Tracy gets upset and goes a little mad, while McAllister is backing Paul and trying to secure votes for him behind everyone’s backs. Meanwhile, there’s an odd subplot to add to all this – McAllister has just started an affair with his best friend’s (the teacher who got fired) ex-wife…
During the election speeches, Tammy wins the crowd over and looks set to be the surefire winner, and so the competition and sabotage begins, with the headmaster not wanting Tammy to win, Tammy not wanting to win but not wanting Paul to either, McAllister willing to do anything to stop Tracy winning, and Tracy, determined to do whatever it takes to stop them all and claim her place in the student council.

■■ My Opinion ■■
This is the kind of film that grows on you; at least, I seem to enjoy it more every time I watch it. I first saw it not long after it was released in 1999, watched it on TV again a couple of years later, and watched it for a third time when it was on ITV last Wednesday night. The first time I didn’t think much of it, the second time it wasn’t too bad, and last week I really enjoyed it! Admittedly, the first time I saw it I’d only seen a couple of Reese Witherspoon films and I didn’t have a clue who Chris Klein was and the only cast member I actually recognised was Matthew Broderick! These days Reese is one of my favourite actresses, and Chris Klein has that Jason-Biggs-in-Loser geeky but cute look about him.

Set in Carver High School, the whole film gives you the impression that something sinister is about to happen and keeps you constantly expecting that something disturbing is looming.
There’s also a continual theme throughout the film – the difference between morals and ethics, although the question is never really answered nor is its relevance to the film explained.

I really enjoyed the film, but it’s not really one of the feel-good chick flicks that I usually go for. After seeing Reese Witherspoon in light and fluffy romantic comedies like Legally Blonde and Sweet Home Alabama, it’s nice to see her in something darker; at least, it makes a change to see her in that kind of role. Here, she plays the girl you love to hate, the straight A student who knows everything, is most teachers pet, belongs to every school club there is, but what the other students don’t know is that she comes from a poor family and has to work hard to keep her grades up. I felt quite sorry for her actually, especially as McAllister blames her entirely for his best friend getting fired. Jim McAllister, played by Matthew Broderick, just comes across as naive for the most part of the film; you spend half of it feeling sorry for him and half of it thinking what an idiot he’s being.
Then you’ve got Chris Klein, who’s really good at this type of role, playing Paul, who is sweet, innocent and incredibly stupid. Too stupid to realise he’s the pawn in McAllister’s mid life crisis and that his teacher doesn’t care whether he wins the election or not or what happens to him along the way, he just cares that Tracy doesn’t win it.

The one thing I dislike about this film, and maybe it’s just me who can’t stand this, but there are a lot of freeze-frames, especially at the beginning, where the opposing characters tell you a bit of brief history of the character you’re looking at, and the film switches narration alternately between the lead characters. For me, the freeze-frames made it hard to follow the actual sentence the character was in the middle of saying and it becomes rather annoying.

This is described as a high school comedy, which for me brings visions of Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, Loser or something similar.
Don’t expect anything like that; it’s a lot darker than your average teen movie, the humour is less obvious but it’s cleverly written and makes a joke out of political issues as much as it does high school stereotypes.

■■ Quotes ■■
The humour in this film is not really of the laugh-out-loud variety, it’s more the subtle, sarcastic lines that come across as amusing.

McAllister: Linda never came home that night. I know because I spent ten hours waiting outside her house.

Paul: Dear God, thank you for all your blessings. You've given me so many things, like good health, nice parents, a nice truck, and what I'm told is a large penis!

McAllister: Paul, what is your favourite fruit?
Paul: Pineapple.
McAllister: Okay, now...
Paul: No wait! Apples.
McAllister: Great, now say that everyday you had an apple. An apple, an apple and more apples. You probably thought that apples were pretty good, even if you got a rotten one every once in awhile. Then one day there was an orange. Now you can choose, do you want an apple or do you want an orange? That's democracy.
Paul: I also like bananas…

■■ Buy It ■■
The DVD doesn’t have much in the way of special features - it just includes the standard technical bits and director commentary.
Amazon.co.uk has the DVD for £10.39, while larger stores like HMV have the VHS for £5.99 and the DVD for £10.99.

■■ Tagline ■■
- Reading, Writing, Revenge.
 

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