Review: ELECTION (1999)
December 8th 2008 21:56
Election - 5/10
The irreverent, dark comedy about a high school student council election has all the ingredients for a great comedy, yet loses any hope of winning my vote.
G.W. Carver High School holds a tradition much like any other high school: the election for the Student Council President. And like any other high school, those students running for the election do their best to get their name out and win the vote. However, the few students running for the election at the school are not like any other high schoolers. They are determined...and they will do whatever it takes to get the vote. There's Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), the ambitious overachiever who cannot seem to grasp that winning is not everything; there's Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) who, after a skiing accident, lost his hopes of playing football and decided to run; there's Tammy Metzler (Jessica Campbell), Paul's adopted sister who decides to run because of jealousy over her love of Paul's girlfriend. And then there's Mr. Jim McAllister, a well liked teacher, (Matthew Broderick) who would love nothing more than to make sure that Tracy does not win and will do whatever it takes to make sure that happens.
Election started off very well. It was incredibly funny and made it very easy to get caught up in the story. It's introductions of the characters was the highlight of the first act and gave me the feeling that this would be a very enjoyable dark comedy (much like Thank You for Smoking). However, after the first twenty minutes or so, the story seemed to get so muddled up in all the characters lives that it could not figure out where to go. First, there was Tracy's love affair with Jim's best friend and fellow teacher Dave (Mark Harelik), then there was Tammy's love affair with Lisa (Frankie Ingrassia), and then there was Mr. McAllister's love affair with Dave's ex-wife Linda (Delaney Driscoll). If that wasn't enough, it seemed that the filmmakers decided that they couldn't figure out which character to make the narrator so they threw in every character who had more than 20 lines as the narrator, so we get the unfortunate opportunity to see the film through way too many perspectives.
There were, however, a few good highlights to film, especially some great one-liners. Reese Witherspoon carried her role extremely well and Matthew Broderick finally has another great role after what seems to be a slew of terrible films. He especially has one line, towards the end of the film, that made me nearly piss my pants laughing.
All-in-all, however,I was disappointed in the fact that I did not like this film. I was really looking forward to seeing this and was glad it came up as a recommendation to see. However, for me, it just did not work out and turned into a distorted mess that I could not work my way through.
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Comment by Janet Collins
Acceptable Etiquette
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
So we'll have to disagree with this one
Comment by Taylor
It was just the movie as a whole that did not do it for me.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
A black comedy of manners masquerading as a high school caper flick.
Easily Witherspoon's best role to date, and arguably the best performance from Matthew Broderick, although Ferris Bueller does have his own charismatic charm.
I loved the hurly-burly of characters and relationships, and it reflects just how screwy and grey the real world really is.
I've got an old copy on VHS, but your post has reminded me that I need to upgrade my copy to a DVD. A special edition would be a treat with director's commentary, deleted scenes perhaps, outtakes (i'm sure the actors must have corpsed a few times during takes), etc.
I guess the movie is an acquired taste, one that tickles my palette most definitely.
Comment by Taylor
That's the best way to describe it. It's one of those movies that I didn't like, but I would never call it a bad movie.
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
I love Alexander Payne as a filmmaker too, and personally I think he's made three utterly brilliant films with this, About Schmidt and Sideways, each one a minor masterpiece in its own right.
What did you think of those two Taylor?
Bryn, you're right, we need a special edition DVD - the one we have now has a commentary from Payne but nothing else! It deserves so much better!
Comment by Taylor