# Election (1999)

### reviewed by
Jason Allen

    ELECTION
    Released 5.7.99
    Paramount Pictures
    Running Time: 103 Minutes
    Rated R

The dark comedy ELECTION presents a scathing look at the harsh world of politics. While occurring in a teenage setting, this quality script fleshed out on screen through skilled acting deals with themes older generations will find relevant.

Meet Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon). This girl involves herself with every possible school activity she can enter, allowing for a busy schedule and no friends. With an over-achieving attitude, she sweet talks administrators and staff and arrives in the spot of teacher's pet with ease. Striving to attain the highest rank in everything she does, the apparently innocent young blonde will crush anyone who opposes her. The time has rolled around at Carver High School for the student body to choose their new class officers who will represent them for the upcoming school year. The film follows the race for the esteemed position of president. Tracy, always spotting the opportunity for a good college resume booster, enters the race unopposed. The bubbly, cute persona she puts on in public only stands to further her inner desires of domination. She endlessly campaigns with banners, pins, and free chewing gum, even though she certainly holds a lock on the win.

The events he sees transpiring upset history teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick), the Student Government Association sponsor. Having firsthand experience of the underlying schemes Tracy uses in achieving her goals, he comes to despise the constant perkiness and know-it-all mentality she conveys. As a result, McAllister decides he cannot let her easily win the race without a fight, so he secretly pushes the football team's star quarterback to run for president as well.

Paul Metzler (Chris Klein), the dumb jock urged to enter, reluctantly accepts his favorite teacher's proposition. With this he begins plastering posters throughout the school and issues a full-blown campaign. Of course, an outraged Tracy demands to find out who put the athlete up to this, and a full-scale war ensues. She now endlessly muscles her way around spreading her messages of "Pick Flick" and "Vote for tomorrow today."

Adding to the melee, Paul's lesbian sister Tammy (Jessica Campbell) becomes entrenched in the race as a surprise third candidate when she believes she can use this attempt to get back at an old girlfriend who supports her brother. Yes, it admittedly sounds a little screwy, but she comes off as the only competitor with a truly earnest spirit and lack of self-serving motives. Her crowd-pleasing speech to the assembly of jeering students earns her the place as the favorite because of her honesty, while the snobby Tracy and sweet but goofy Paul merely give bland promises of the future.

The movie offers a biting portrait of the political process which runs throughout elections from high school all the way to Washington. The tactics employed to assure victory by the nominees, especially Tracy, depict the do-whatever-it-takes mentality so prevalent in today's officials. By stepping on anyone in the way, the representative may eventually fulfill the road to power, but the public often does not view the high costs and dirty tricks applied in reaching the status.

The film's funny tone gives a lighthearted feel to a mature message of sticking to morality rather than regressing into lies to gain an objective. No one escapes suffering from the consequences when vigorous plots suppress the truth. Witherspoon portrays the venomous Tracy with a wonderful performance, and Broderick's McAllister shows how simply a nice guy can suddenly find himself trapped in a bad situation. Election delivers the goods for insight into the ruthless political game while supplying laughs along the way at every turn. B

    Reviewed by Jason Allen
    spirellae@aol.com

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews