Amazon.com essential video: Matthew Broderick makes up for years of wet-noodle performances with his low-key but unsparing characterization of Jim McAllister, a high school teacher at George Washington Carver High School in Omaha, Nebraska. Driven by a strange mixture of loathing and lust for pathologically overachieving student Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), McAllister encourages a dim but popular athlete, Paul (Chris Klein from American Pie), to run against her in the election for student-council president. Director-cowriter Alexander Payne (Citizen Ruth) turns this deceptively simple premise into a complex and scathing comedy of ambition, corruption, and desire, all at its most naked and petty. Every scene contains some painfully funny nuance that will make you wince in a mixture of astonishment and empathy. Witherspoon flips effortlessly back and forth from adolescent vulnerability to steely-eyed strength; she's becoming a contemporary Carole Lombard. The movie itself feels like a magnificent throwback to the richly layered comedies of the '30s, which drew their humor from sharply drawn characters and twisting plots instead of explosions of bodily fluids. With a wealth of smart, cutting details, Election rewards multiple viewing. --Bret Fetzer
It's not about me, so how good can it be...? First off, I bought this movie thinking it would be about me, but it turned out to be about a lot of boring people and stuff the director self-importantly thinks worth making a movie about. And it needs a editor, it's way too long for me to focus on, with a lot of meandering thinking and reflection, none of which is about me, or is worth my time, which is very limited, as the director ought to know, and it's not even about stuff that I can talk to other people about -- it's too uncool to talk about positively, and who wants to make themselves look cool by saying how uncool something is, which is very unlikable.
So, not about me, nothing cool I can refer to with other people, long and boring. This director couldn't get a film released by The Shopping Channel, so I guess this lame movie studio decided to pick it up cheap, which shows because whatever is going on in the story is buried in boring long winded scenes and people talking about stuff I have no interest in. Just cut to the chase, give me the high points and the stuff I need to remember to talk about. Now that's good movie writing, if you can't say it in a few sentences and keep the action moving you just need to go back to school and learn more about film making. The almost complete lack of violence makes the movie very dry and leaves me having no idea what the movie is about. And the characters don't seem to grow, or learn, and they are very unlikeable, the ending seems way to happy for what losers they are, and none of them resemble me or the people who like me. There are a lot of ugly moments and boring events, way too much sex, that I don't think most people need to see or think about. Once I have invested in a movie then I am committed to watching it, even one as boring as this. If this director wants my business in the future he's going to have to listen to me and think about me a lot more, and, finally, write a movie that shows the director understands that my self esteem can not be wasted on boring, self-indulgent, undisciplined, pretentious projects like this one.
Immature . . . and I don't just mean the characters To quote my mother, "Wow. Where the Hell did THAT go?"
What a juvenile movie. This one seriously needed a hormone-ectomy. Illogical sexual entanglements and product-placement swearing don't substitute for genuine cleverness. One got the feeling that the directors felt the need to have a character spit out the F-word right into the camera every ten minutes, or whenever the plot started to stumble, to make sure the audience was still paying attention. I mean, I get that it was supposed to be dark humor. They got the "dark" right but the "humor" was pretty puerile and lame. It had all sorts of plot lines that didn't go anywhere and, consequently, did not make sense. It didn't actually have any insight into any of the characters. It was SHALLOW. Good satire is not shallow.
It's pretty misogynistic, too. Actually, Tammy's character, though pitiable, is probably the most human female in it (she's a confused teenaged lesbian, which didn't bother me but will probably bother people who are bothered by lesbianism and rebelliousness). The rest are vicious manipulators (Tracy and Lisa) or cold bitches (Linda and Diane). Broderick's character is a self-serving, embarrassing, loser, but I guess we're supposed to sympathize[?].
Has anyone EVER encountered a dumb jock as nice as Paul? All the dumb jocks at my school were self-centered jerks who got away with all sorts of garbage because they were *jocks*, and Heaven forbid anyone discipline the football team.
It did remind me, though, of how much I hated high school in general and student-body elections in particular. What a total crock.
An Enjoyable Flick with Flick! There are over 200 reviews for this disc...
Let's just say it's not a slapstick comedy, but it doesn't try to be. It is witty, clever, and full of self-depricating humor. Broderick is in his element.
The Next Female President . . . You've probably seen the snippet on YouTube that proclaims "Hillary Clinton IS Tracy Flick!" Well, my friends, it's true. If you enjoyed that little scene, you must revisit Alexander Payne's darkly comic 1999 gem and see for yourself how oddly prescient it was in depicting the precise dynamic going on now in American presidential politics. Reese Witherspoon is Tracy, a rabidly ambitious high school student in Omaha, Nebraska (Director Payne's hometown, which he also lovingly lampooned in "About Schmidt"), who is determined, by sheer grit, to win the election for student body president. Tracy is the ideal of college selection boards everywhere: bright, perky, neat, organized, always prepared for class, and single-mindedly involved in more school activities than there are hours in the day. On paper, she's a educator's dream . . . but she represents an uneasy nightmare for her social studies teacher, Mr. McAllister (Matthew Broderick). Mr. McAllister has his own reasons for disliking Tracy. She is the kind of grating apple polisher that has her hand up with the answer to every question he poses. She's at school every morning an hour before everyone else, and works late evenings and weekends on all her various extracurricular responsibilies. And she had an affair with Mr. McAllister's best friend and colleague that resulted in him losing both his job and his marriage. Tracy herself seems blithely oblivious to all the havoc she has caused. Is this wide-eyed naivete genuine or is at all an elaborate act? Mr. McAllister is inclined to believe the latter. The spectre of having to spend lots and lots of quality time alone with Tracy in his capacity as student government advisor looms large, and he persuades popular-but-dim quarterback Paul(Chris Klein) to run against Tracy. Despite having her picture splashed on every page of the yearbook (which she also edits), Tracy is a lonely figure. Her ruthless ambition and complete lack of humor about herself make friendships impossible. Tracy's robotic efficiency makes her best-suited to the government wonk job, but the engaging and likeable Paul threatens to steal the election right from under Tracy's pert and entitlist nose, making the campaign increasingly contentious.
In one of her earliest starring roles, Reese Witherspoon displays the acting chops that would later garner her an Oscar. Ms. Witherspoon plays against her naturally sunny and likeable persona to create Tracy and she is so successful, it is frightening. She gives Tracy flashes of vulnerability when we almost want to hug her for trying so hard . . .and then hardens that into a steely Machiavellian drive that repulses. It is one of the most subtle yet devastating performances ever by an actress, and given Ms. Witherspoon's youth at the time, all the more amazing. Broderick has an equally challenging role as Tracy's foil, a man so bent on engineering her downfall, he fails to recognize his own less admirable qualities until it's too late. Fans of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" have perhaps matured sufficiently to recognize the deep irony in having Ferris himself become a schlubby member of the Establishment. Broderick has in some ways the trickier role, yet he succeeds in navigating the fine line between pathos and humor and makes McAllister a low-rent Everyman that we can root for.
The last time McAllister, and the audience see Tracy, several years after the events of the movie, she is a congressional aide getting into a limo with her congressman, with the White House in the background behind her. Hmm. The obvious similarity to Monica Lewinsky aside, Tracy reminds us of someone else we have gotten to know very well these last 10 or so years, who has her sights firmly fixed on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue . . .again. Were Payne and novelist Tom Perotta on whose book the screenplay is based eerily psychic, or are the glaring similarities to HRC's rise just a cosmic chuckle? We may have months yet before the outcome of 'our' election is decided . . . while you are killing time before November, watch this and have a a rueful laugh. Was Tracy Flick inspired by Hillary Clinton, or are Tracy and HRC just two examples of a feminine archtype that's as old as the human race itself? We may never know!
"Dear Lord Jesus, I really must insist that you help me win the election tomorrow" "Dear Lord Jesus," prays Tracy Flick the night before the election for student body president, "I do not often speak with you and ask for things, but now, I really must insist that you help me win the election tomorrow because I deserve it and Paul Metzler doesn't, as you well know. I realize that it was your divine hand that disqualified Tammy Metzler and now I'm asking that you go that one last mile and make sure to put me in office where I belong so that I may carry out your will on earth as it is in heaven. Amen."
Tracy (Reese Witherspoon) is an overachieving senior in suburban George Washington Carver High School (where the student body is all white). What Tracy wants, she gets, using a combination of single-minded hard work, bright smiles as phony as a television infomercial, eager volunteering and a ruthlessness that varies between chirpiness and squinted eyes. As Tracy says, quoting her Mom, "The weak are always trying to sabotage the strong."
Then one of Tracy's teachers, Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick), decides the world needs to be saved from Tracy. He talks one of the school's popular football athletes to run against Tracy. From now on Jim has his hands full trying to sabotage Tracy's relentless campaign, impregnate his wife, convince himself his next door neighbor, a recent divorcee, is really going to understand him if they can only check into a motel for a couple of hours...and deal with the consequences of everything he set in motion.
Election, written and directed by Alexander Payne, is one of the funniest, darkest satires of human behavior since Jonathan Swift recommended that the poor should simply sell their children to be eaten by the rich. There are a lot of teenagers in this movie, but it's not just another teen-age movie. We're looking at the ludicrous depths to which ambition and good intentions, when mixed with politics, can take us. If that seems ponderous, it's about as ponderous as Tracy Flick's mom writing compulsively to people like Connie Chung and Elizabeth Dole asking for advice. (Never give up on your dreams is the usual reply.)
The script moves from the exaggerated to the outlandish with great style. The actors deliver the goods with deadpan sincerity and self-serving honesty. Reese Witherspoon as Tracy Flick hits the bull's-eye with unnerving accuracy. She is so sincere in her insincerity, which is, in Tracy Flick's own way, completely sincere, that Witherspoon makes us smile and shudder at the same time. As outstanding as she is, Matthew Broderick is the heart of the movie. Jim McAllister is part lech, part nebbish, but mostly good guy. It's a funny, almost poignant performance. Payne's script and Broderick's acting give us a perfect ending that's just as brittle, cool and amusing as the rest of the movie.
I like Election a lot. I hope as time passes the movie isn't forgotten. The DVD transfer, widescreen and anamorphic, looks just fine. There's an audio commentary, which I didn't listen to, by Payne.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tony's Online Tips
Trevor
