A tragicomedy about high school politics

"Election" is a strange movie that fits somewhere between comedy and tragedy. The story itself is straightforward and fairly simple but it is in the characters of this film that we get a true sense of comic and tragic figures.

The two main characters illustrate this well. Jim McAllister(played wonderfully by Matthew Broderick)is a happy-go-lucky high school teacher with one problem--He can't stand overenthusiastic people who will go to any means to present themselves as superhuman. He especially has something against Tracy Flick(played by Reese Witherspoon), a student who seems to be immersed in everything in the school system and yet is otherwise very lonely. She takes up with Dave Novotny, a teacher friend of McAllister's, and they have a passionate yet short-lived affair. Flick's mother eventually finds out and Novotny ends up disappearing from the rest of the film. However Novotny was McAllister's best friend and he can't help but feel that Flick was partially responsible for the destruction of his good friend. He can't stand her and who can blame him?

Flick is presented as the type of go-getter everybody who went through high school remembers. In my school it was a guy named Aaron who thought that his life revolved around him doing everything for the school and doing everything in his power to make sure that nobody else got the glory except himself. Flick is the same type of person--Ambitious to a fault, very irritable and sharp and yet with a fierce intelligence that serves her well.

The plot itself revolves around these two characters and two more who I will get to in a minute. The school election is coming up and Flick is running unopposed for president. McAllister doesn't want Flick as president as he can't stand on her and as he puts it towards the end "Who knows how many people Flick would step on to get to the top?". Nothing stands in her way. While watching a porno(You read right), McAllister gets the idea that someone should run against Tracy. He comes up with the perfect person--Paul Metzler(played by Chris Klein doing his best Keanu Reeves impression).

Paul Metzler was the hero of the football team until he broke his leg in a skiing accident. Now he can't play football which was his whole life. So McAllister gives him the idea to run for president. Paul decides to even though he's incredibly dumb(His idea for a good slogan for his presidency is "Metzler is betzler"). He's actually though an extremely nice guy and goes out of the way to be nice to tracy even though she can't stand him.

There is a third candidate though that pops up and she is Paul's adopted sister--Tammy Metzler. Tammy as she puts it is "Not a lesbian" but rather the only people she has ever been attracted to were women. The last girl Tammy was with (named Lisa) was ashamed of the things she did with Tammy and so she sleeps with Paul and becomes Paul's campaign advisor. Tammy is jealous and decides in revenge to run for herself. Her platform is one I love--"I promise one thing if I win--I'll eliminate the student body so that none of us have to ever sit in another one of these stupid assemblies again". You tell them Tammy.

So that's the campaign for president--the go-getter with a god complex Tracy Flick, the dumb but nice jock Paul and Tammy, the one with the platform everyone loves(except of course most of the faculty). That's the set-up. We also have the involvement of Jim McAllister who hates Tracy. These four people set off a chain of events that leads to life changes for every one of them. It is essentially the story of Jim and Tracy though and it is this story that is powerful and extremely sad.

Jim is not a bad person--Just one who always wanted to be a teacher and who has a few problems. He hates Tracy Flick. He lusts after Linda Novotny, the girl his best friend left behind. He has a marriage that is somewhat fragile and a wife whose idea of pillow talk is "Fill me up Jim" as if she was a truck and him the gas station. Things happen and in the end Jim ends up in the worst shape of everybody. I won't say what happens except to say that we get a lot of mud-slinging, controversy, and even some sabotage. I guess school politics aren't much different from the real thing eh?

Tracy isn't a bad person either--Sure she's egotistical and ruthless but there's a few moments in the film where you can't help but feel sad for her. She's extremely lonely and has no real friends. She's human too and wonders why she isn't happy?

This is an interesting film. It's tragic in many respects and comedic in others but overall I don't know how to describe it except to say that it's an interesting look at the dynamics of character. I know that's a strange way to describe a film but it's extremely character-driven. The plot doesn't ring false and the characters themselves come across as realistic. It's a good film. I had no real problems with it and that's a good thing. It's one of those films that gets better upon every watching (I don't believe I put this on my list of top films of 1999 and I am ashamed for this is incredibly good). Definitely an interesting film worth watching.