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The Election
Review This!
Don’t Believe the Hype
What can we learn from MTV
Film’s newest release, Election? People who
want to win student body elections are driven, ruthless
people. Everyone in the Midwest wears ties with their short
sleeve shirts. If you want to go to a single-gender high
school, you’re probably gay. Athletic party animals
frat boys really have a heart of gold. If you drive a Ford
Festiva - you’re a big loser.
Thank you, MTV for transporting
me back to high school.
Election is the story
of a the election for student body president at Grover Cleveland
High School. Running unopposed is the most driven, ambitious,
and extracurricularized student to ever hang up a piece
of poster board, Tracy Flick (played by Reese Whitherspoon).
I hated her from the start. I was not alone, as the story
progresses we learn about the "issues" that the
student government moderator, a teacher named Jim MacAlester
(Matthew Broderick) has with this student. Besides the fact
that he finds her an antithesis to everything he believes
in (kindness and all that stuff), the affair that she had
with another teacher cost him a friend.
Mr. MacAlester (or Mr. M, as
the students call him) takes it upon himself to introduce
another candidate into the election. Tracy Flick may win,
but she is not going to win without a fight. The candidate
he picks is Paul Metzler (Chris Klein), the star quarterback
who had to give up football after a skiing accident that
broke his leg. Paul’s run at the presidency sparks
the interest of his adopted lesbian sister, Tammy (Jessica
Campbell). Actually, in her own words she’s not exactly
a lesbian, "I love the person, it’s just that
all the people I love tend to be women".
Now the race is set: Tracy,
Paul, and Tammy. At this point in the movie I was ready.
The characters had been fleshed out, the stage had been
set, and I was ready for the political Battle Royale that
was sure to ensue. What evil scheme was Tracy hatching?
Would Paul be able to win over a school that had no use
for him anymore? Would Tracy realize that there was something
special about Tammy that was arousing this feelings she’d
never had before? Without giving away anything I can tell
you no. Nothing happens during the election. Aside from
a couple of minor flip-outs on Tracy’s part and a plan
on Tammy’s part to get kicked out of school so she
can go to the Catholic girls school across town (‘cause
she’s a lesbian - get it?), nothing happens during
the election.
But, you may well ask, what
does the movie deal with? The movie deals with the mental
collapse of Jim MacAlester. Surely that was related to the
election? Wasn’t it? Actually, no. Jimbo’s mental
collapse is due to problems at home and his infatuation
with a neighbor. Jim’s problems destroy him so much
that he ends up betraying the ideas of fairness and civic
responsibility that he hold so dear. Of course, in keeping
with the spirit of a movie in which so much is promised
but nothing is delivered, this betrayal doesn’t seem
to affect him.
The movie is a whole in the
sense that it is two halves thrown together. Each of the
parts are enjoyable, with strong performances throughout,
and a wry sense of humor that is helped along by the use
of narration and clever post production touches. Unfortunately,
the movie as whole sort of drifts off instead of completely
fleshing out even one of its plotlines.
--Sketchy
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