Election (1999)

Once I saw this title on the menu, I decided it should be my first viewing after Election Day. The advertising didn't appeal to me, especially the poster showing a tiny man's head in a girl's mouth, but the movie itself has some enduring clout, including reportedly being Barack Obama's favorite political pic.

High school civic teacher Jim (Matthew Broderick) has complicated feelings about busy, ambitious A student Tracy (Reese Witherspoon): He resents her for having had an inappropriate relationship with his now fired and divorced co-worker, Dave (Mark Harelik), but also fears that he will make the same mistake, especially if she becomes the student government president and thus spends more time around him. He persuades injured football star Paul (Chris Klein) to run against her. Paul's sister Tammy (Jessica Campbell), bitter at him for dating her female love interest, Lisa (Frankie Ingrassia), then enters the race to thwart him. Amid this havoc, Jim turns out to be in much more danger of straying toward Dave's ex-wife, Linda (Delaney Driscoll), who is also a friend of Jim's wife, Diane (Molly Hagan).

The four main characters all serve as largely past-tense narrators. Tracy is perhaps the most stereotypical candidate, arrogantly entitled yet not at all confident in her success, even before there's any competition. Paul has more popularity and integrity than brains, so he narrates very little. Tammy borders on nihilism, which gives her the least incentive to win but resonates far more with the student body than with the staff. This being a comedy, the narration does little or nothing to improve our opinion of any of them.

For all the MTV I watched in the '90s, I never saw all of a full-length MTV Productions feature before. It has pretty much what I expected: National Lampoon-like taste. There's swearing, unambiguous teen sex, heavily implied statutory rape and adultery.... I should add that while Tammy doesn't strike me as a caricature of lesbians (and claims to be a bisexual who just happens to want only girls so far), the use of a slur by a straight person probably would not fly in modern Hollywood.

Only after watching did I learn that this is adapted from a novel by Tom Perrotta, author of Little Children. The book took inspiration from the '92 election, particularly with the unusually prominent third-party nominee. That helps explain the Oscar nod for Best Adapted Screenplay. A synopsis does not mention Linda but suggests that the prime deviation is a detail at the end, which came about thanks to the test screening.

Characters mostly suffer in proportion to their sins, whether or not they face appropriate legal penalties. As such, the epilogue is not as happy as in the average comedy, but at least nobody seems presently miserable. I'm OK with this measure of screen justice.

Election may not be for me, but I put it ahead of The Candidate, if only for humor I can recognize as humor. I'm glad Alexander Payne went on to better works.