‘Election’ (1999)
I showed Alexander Payne’s 1999 film “Election” to my LifeQuest class without going back and reading my original review of the film. I didn’t want to influence myself before talking about it.
After I got home, I had to look the old review up.
Sometimes, when a writer looks back at old work, the writer is appalled. I was a different person 25 years ago, and saw a different movie than the one I showed the people in my class. I had a different set of experiences and processed things differently.
When you watch a film made in 1999, you have removed it from its original context and set it down in a world the filmmakers could not have imagined, though it kind of seems like they did. “Election,” which is loosely based on a true story about a high school student government election that a teacher interfered with because he did not like that a pregnant student had been elected class president, seems to anticipate a lot of the political drama of the 2000s, from hanging chads to the rise of a populist outsider whose platform is to burn all established institutions to the ground.
We might feel differently about Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick now. By 1999, Witherspoon had been working for years (“Pleasantville,” “Cruel Intentions”) but her Tracy Flick was the first character that resonated with me. (I was not alone; Witherspoon has said she felt typecast by the role, and had trouble finding work in the immediate aftermath of “Election” because producers unfairly suspected Flick was more an aspect of Witherspoon’s personality than a character the actor created.)
We hadn’t yet seen Broderick’s subtle work in 2000’s “You Can Count on Me.”
Still, re-reading the review, I can stand behind most of it, though in one major sense my opinion has changed — I didn’t feel one bit sorry for Broderick’s character upon rewatching. It was also curious how little I made of the Tracy Flick character. And, though it’s understandable given my approach to reviewing movies — I don’t think you can fairly evaluate a movie in the immediate afterglow of seeing a film (though that’s exactly what the conventions of reviewing on deadline force), I was kind of disappointed I didn’t seem to recognize the film for what it was — a modern classic and genuinely great movie.
That said, it’s somewhat surprising to note that “Election” was not an unqualified hit upon release; worldwide it grossed a little more than $17 million, against a budget estimated at $25 million. It received one Oscar nomination, with director Alexander Payne and his writing partner Jim Taylor picking up a best adapted screenplay nod. (They did not win.) Witherspoon was nominated for
a Golden Globe. (The film did win three Independent Spirit Awards as best film, best director and best screenplay.)
Here’s the 1999 review — annotated.
It’s probably not fair to Dan Quayle to repeat the line about “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” being the former vice president’s favorite movie. After all, it has been a while since we’ve asked him, and there have been an awful lot of movies released in the 13 years since John Hughes’ story of the charming high school skip artist was released.
Yet, if one has to choose a favorite movie, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” isn’t a bad one to choose — it’s bright and unpretentious and features a wonderfully expressive, sunny performance by Matthew Broderick.
Broderick returns to high school in Alexander Payne’s (“Citizen Ruth”) latest film, the refreshingly mordant “Election.” (“Citizen Ruth,” Payne’s 1996 debut feature, was also a black satire with political overtones. It stars Laura Dern as a poor, drug-addicted and irresponsible pregnant woman who becomes a cause celeb, attracting attentions from both sides of the abortion debate. Like “Election,” it was also inspired by a true story about an unhoused single mother from North Dakota who was offered $11,000 to carry what would have been her seventh child to term.)
This time he’s no Ferris, but an “involved” civics teacher named Jim McAllister. You know the type — the kind of teacher who weaves lectures on the difference between morals and ethics into his classes on current events. He’s also trapped in a boring marriage and — though he doesn’t quite realize it, at least not at first — is slowly turning into one of those quietly desperate men no one ever suspects capable of such terrible whatever. He’s possibly a good man — at least he can tell himself that — but he possesses a tragic flaw.
McAllister’s nemesis is ebullient, tightly wound overachiever Tracy Flick, played with frightening precision by Reese Witherspoon.
Tracy is running — unopposed — for student government president, yet she has flung herself into the campaign with remarkable energy and drive. She rises early to collect her needed signatures, bakes cupcakes and smiles with Stepfordian intensity.
You know this type as well, though the genius of Payne’s film is that he never simply divides the world into heroes and villains. (Looking back, I might have said he divides the world into villains and slightly less despicable villains.) He allows human juices to flow in characters that might otherwise seem dry stereotypes. While Payne’s worldview is essentially pessimistic, he allows the audience to feel compassion for Tracy by subtly demonstrating that her pathological need to succeed is itself a trap. She’s as pitiable as she is dangerous.
In any case, Mr. M doesn’t care much for young Tracy, and it’s not just because of her scary relentlessness. There’s a personal edge to his distaste, and while he might be able to convince himself that it’s for the good of the school — and even Tracy herself — that he recruits an affable if dim jock named Paul (Chris Klein) to run against her, there’s a disturbing ugliness in his manipulation.
(I interviewed Klein right around the time “Election” was released. He came off as a somewhat over-serious young man, and I remember wondering if he wasn’t determined to show everyone that he wasn’t the Labrador retriever puppy he played in “Election” in real life. On re-watching, I was more impressed by his performance than I had been initially.)
Much has been made of the parallels between the high school election chronicled in “Election” and the political processes of the larger world. The movie was based on Tom Perrotta’s novel of the same name, inspired by the threeway presidential race of 1992. (As well as the aforementioned incident, Perrotta’s book was unpublished when Payne optioned it. He would go on to write “Little Children,” which was made into an Oscar-nominated film by Todd Field and “The Leftovers” and “Mrs. Fletcher,” both of which were adapted into HBO series.)
Some comparisons are viable — it is no trick to see Tracy as a kind of Bill Clinton figure, with Paul filling the George H.W. Bush role and Paul’s sister (a petulant nascent lesbian who enters the contest to get back at her brother for “stealing” her girlfriend) as the bomb-throwing Ross Perot. (Unconfirmed rumors have Perrotta basing the Flick character on the young Hillary Clinton; though having researched Clinton’s high school years and her student government campaigns, I can say that Flick is a lot more ruthless and successful.)
(The young actor who I didn’t name was Jennifer Campbell, who earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Debut Performance. Campbell didn’t have a long Hollywood career; she appeared in a couple of episodes of “Freaks & Geeks” before retiring in 2003 to become a naturopathic physician. She died suddenly in December 2020, after suffering flu-like symptoms and collapsing after visiting patients. Her family initially said they didn’t believe her death was covid-19 related.)
But what’s far more interesting than how the characters seem to represent real-life candidates is how well they seem to reflect the American high school experience. There is a verisimilitude to “Election” that is jarring to moviegoers used to broader, less nuanced depictions. (It was filmed in a real high school in Payne’s hometown of Omaha, Neb., and real high school students and other nonprofessional actors were extensively used.)
There is at least one scene between Witherspoon and Broderick that positively crackles with malevolent energy — for a couple of electric moments it feels more like one of the teacher-student exchanges in David Mamet’s play “Oleanna” than a scene from the latest black comedy teen movie. Part of this is due to Payne’s unflinching confidence, but the actors involved also deserve credit.
Broderick gives the most — only? — subtle performance of his career, as McAllister spirals deeper and deeper into his own personal moral — or ethical? — abyss. (Like I mentioned, this was before “You Can Count on Me.”) And Witherspoon — whose lures have heretofore seemed superficial and gaudy — proves a real flint-skinned actor. (There’s another great performance, by Phil Reeves, as the laconic — and spineless — school principal.)
“Election” is a scathing morality tale — with yuks. And poor Broderick goes through so much, is so tortured, that even someone who detested the smirking Ferris Bueller can’t help but feel for him.
(This is the one issue I have with the review — these days I feel that Mr. M gets exactly what’s coming to him and is owed no sympathy. Did I really detest Ferris Bueller? Maybe. As I remember it was a lot of annoying people’s favorite movie.)
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