Review

Viewed alongside American Beauty and Drop Dead Gorgeous, Election rounds off the trilogy of outstanding recent American fare about the holes in wholesome American life. “You can’t interfere with destiny — that’s why it’s destiny,” explains Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), the driven goody-two-shoes who would outdo the competition by being a goody-four-shoes if only she could sprout two extra feet.

“Teaching was all I’d ever wanted to do,” explains Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick), whose story, told in retrospect, this is. Jim adores his job at Omaha’s George Washington Carver High School, where he’s taught for 12 wonderful, satisfying years. But he inadvertently jeopardizes his comfy career when he resolves to not let Tracy run unopposed for student body president. Jim convinces rich and popular athlete Paul Metzler (Chris Klein, in a performance Janet Maslin rightly dubbed “early Keanu”) to beef up the democratic process by entering the race. Before long, the clean-cut are embroiled in dirty politics that would make the Watergate “plumbers” blush.

A spot-on microcosmic view of how the American electoral process gets bent out of shape, Election, directed with a very sure hand by Alexander Payne from a script written with Jim Taylor, delivers darkly funny motivations crowned with smart, terribly bittersweet consequences.

FilmFestivals.com reporter
Lisa Nesselson