Election (1999)

Starring Starring Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon

Written by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, based on the Tom Perrotta novel

Directed by Alexander Payne

I had a classmate in high school named Curt Hartman. He was the male equivalent of Election's Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), the chronic overachiever who sees high school as the anvil upon which adult destiny is forged. Curt carried himself like a Grade-A doofus. He looked, sounded and acted like a braying ass. No girls would give him a second look (though to be fair, they didn't give me a second look either). As near as I could tell, he had no friends. And yet even then, we knew that he had greater things in mind. He played on the varsity football team, he was president of the Student Council and the National Honor Society, and was class Valedictorian. He also claimed quite baldly that he would one day be President of the United States. Shortly before graduation, we learned that he had been appointed as a cadet to Annapolis. Those of us who faced a future of nondescript State universities were grudgingly forced to give him his due.

In Election, director and co-screenwriter Alexander Payne took the Curt Hartman/Tracy Flick archetype and twisted it into a metaphor for all the greed, egotism and Hell-bound good intentions that make up the American psyche. That this film was the most intelligent comedy of 1999 must have absolutely terrified MTV Films, which bankrolled it; how could they possibly market this highbrow stuff to their core audience, those media-addled teens who made Adam Sandler a star, the ones who thought undead VJ Jesse Camp had personality? If you go into this picture expecting another American Pie, you'll be sorely disappointed. If you're into quality filmmaking, however, you'll rack up some major karma if you give this picture a spin in the DVD player.

The story concerns Tracy's campaign for Student Council president, and how one well-intentioned teacher comes to see her as a force of evil that must be stopped at any price. The teacher is Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick), a rumpled veteran of the high school trenches. Well-regarded by students and faculty alike, Jim prides himself on how much he loves his job, how involved he is with his student's lives, how he's making a difference. Oh sure, his marriage may have de-evolved into a single-minded race to conception ("Come on, honey, fill me up," his wife says during lovemaking), and he may be ready to put a bullet in his brainpan rather than deliver the same lessons in the same rote order for another year. Oh, and his car sure is a piece of shit. But overall, his life is pretty much how he imagined it would be.

But Tracy galls him in ways he can't fully comprehend. As played by Reese Witherspoon, Tracy is a blond dynamo of controlled nuclear determination; she races from one end of the school to another, always on some college application-building errand. Her prim smile scars every other page of the school yearbook as she poses with the nonplussed members of every school club— she’s the evil psychic twin of Rushmore's Max Fischer. And she regards the Student Council presidency, for which she is running unopposed, as her birthright.

With the clarity that comes with absolute tunnel vision, Jim understands that if Tracy is not stopped at this critical juncture, she will go on to a lifetime of using and discarding others to achieve her own nefarious ends. To thwart her, he browbeats a good-natured, dimwitted jock named Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) into running against her. Paul is a member of the popular clique, but he has a good heart, and Jim smugly tells himself that this election will help Paul blossom into a true leader. Of course, that’s what they told John Kerry.

Tracy, however, regards the competition as a life-threatening assault. More complications arise when Paul's sister, budding lesbian Tammy (Jessica Campbell), loses her girlfriend to Paul and vows revenge by running for President herself. Soon, what began as a meaningless high school election becomes a death match with lives in the balance. Will Jim's career, or his marriage, survive?

The film’s secret sauce is in how it examines each of its characters from enough angles to allow us to form our own opinions about them. As likable as we may find Jim, we can't help but notice that his marriage is a sham— and what about that secret stash of hardcore porno in his basement? Tracy, meanwhile, may be dismissed as a stock villain, until we meet her domineering mother, and see that she is driven largely by loneliness and fear. Still, hers is a diabolical presence. When she hands Jim a cupcake, the message written in icing upon it— PICK FLICK— it looks like a threat.

A script as tight as a snare drum, inventive direction and hilarious, note-perfect performances all conspired to make Election one of the best comedies of the 90's. It’s more or less flawless. Everyone involved with the production came out a winner: Payne cemented his reputation as a whip-smart comedic director, Witherspoon continued her streak of amazing performances, and Broderick found himself delivered from the tormenting flames of Godzilla. Indeed, with this role Broderick came full circle from his career-defining performance in the timeless Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He went from playing Ferris Bueller to playing Principal Ed Rooney— another educator driven to professional suicide in pursuit of his own teenaged white whale.

Election was Alexander Payne's follow up to his debut film, 1996's wonderful but little-seen Citizen Ruth, in which he delivered an exquisitely balanced black comedy about abortion. With 2002’s About Schmidt and 2004’s Oscar-nominated Sideways, he’s become the most consistently brilliant director of American comedy since the salad days of Woody Allen. His films tend to play better in Blue States than they do in the hinterlands, which is why he’d never had a hit until Sideways reached critical mass. But his body of work will last, and will continue to find an audience among those with more than applesauce between the ears.

It's funny, though, how films can dredge up surprising memories. I haven't thought about old Curt Hartman in ten years. No, I take that back. A couple of years ago, I happened across a newspaper article about Curt's recent election as a township trustee. Reading eagerly, I learned that he was an attorney with a prominent local law firm, and that the trusteeship was his first foray into elected office. Curt promised to serve his constituents faithfully, but said that he "would not rule out running for higher office."

You go, Curt.

July 13, 2005
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