Has it crossed your mind that the morality play is a dead genre? Perhaps you’ve wondered what’s become of sharply-written satire?
Alexander Payne’s Election works as both.
First, though it’s over a decade old, its packaging feels modern, almost trendy. Not screechy and obnoxious like handfuls of other teen films currently being produced or peddled. Election‘s charm comes largely from its narrative technique: the audience gets the stories directly from the voice-overs of major characters. Hence we witness various perspectives that combine to create quite a jumbled unity. Payne, the director and co-writer, gives us digestible units that quicken pace and intensify plot. The result? We come away licking our lips, our appetites teased by the delicious ironies.
Jim McAllister teaches Social Studies at an Omaha’s George Washington Carver High School. He seems to get along fine with his wife, his job – his life. What trips him up is anger at an over-achieving student. This girl, Tracy Enid Flick, is both officious and hard-working, a member of all the extra-curriculars she can find. What’s clever about the way in which she is drawn is the ambiguity. Tracy labors but displays immodesty; she thrives without a father or large family income, but her abrasiveness keeps friends away. A colleague of McAllister’s, Dave Novotny, exploits Tracy’s isolation, crashing the border of appropriate student-teacher relationships. One of McAllister’s motivations, of course, is Novotny’s ruined life: “Mr. M” cajoles the popular but injured athlete Paul Metzler into running against Tracy for president of the student government. Complicating the situation even more, Paul’s sister Tammy decides to run! Her motive? To get revenge on her brother’s girlfriend, the same girl on whom Tammy has a major crush.
Meanwhile, Jim McAllister suffers from the wandering eye. Although his problem is less desperate than Novotny’s, he is not averse to having an affair. Ironically, the target of his random affections is Novotny’s ex-wife Linda. Needless to say, McAllister’s life is made no easier because of his immaturity. His choices seem to go awry throughout the course of the story, in fact, particularly during the counting of the votes in the student council race.
Matthew Broderick as McAllister knows how to make a fool of himself in very funny ways, and he gives a sneakily good performance here. Reese Witherspoon, as Tracy Flick, narrowing her eyes into slits whenever she’s thwarted, charges through the film with all due comic monstrousness and turns her character into somebody everyone knows.
And Chris Klein, as the hunk who runs against Tracy, plays his role winningly, in a style best described as early Keanu. His sister, Tammy, also a memorable character, makes herself the school’s favorite dark horse by declaring, ”Who cares about this stupid election?” This is no week to be laughing about surreptitious scheming in a high school. But Election is a deft dark comedy with a resemblance to Rushmore. It’s smart no matter what.
Election is a welcome wake-up call to all those sugarcoated and empty-headed teen romances that have been polluting the megaplexes in recent months. And while it lacks the idealized reverie of high school life that most films of the genre pander to, it more than makes up for this sobering reality check with its scathing attacks on elections in general and how petty self-interest often sabotages the political process.