Election

B+ Directed by Alexander Payne Running Time: 1:41 Rated R

Election was a very funny, very dark comedy about a high school election and a whole lot more. Don't go in thinking is is your typical teen oriented movie, because it's not. It's a very well paced, very well written movie about the lives of certain people in Omaha, Nebraska. Reese Witherspoon stars as Tracy Flick. I think we all know a Tracy Flick or two. The girl who joins every club, the one who is born to lead, the one who someday will have an affair with a high government official leading to the collapse of the government. Anyway, Tracy is a junior who sees her ultimate high school goal in her eyes: Student Government President. Standing in her way though is the 3-time teacher of the year, Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick, back in high school again). See, Tracy had an affair with Jim's best friend. When the affair was found out, his best friend took off never to be seen again. So Jim has a little problem with Tracy. So when he sees that Tracy is running unopposed in the election, he gets the school jock, Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) to run against her. Paul is a simple minded guy who it appears to me gets dumber the longer the movie goes. Also in the race for President is Paul's younger sister Tammy. Tammy enters the race because she's in love with Lisa. Tammy and Lisa had a thing that Lisa called an "experiment" but that Tammy though was forever. To make matters worse, Lisa runs into the arms of, you guessed it, Paul. Throughout the film we have another affair, evil politics, and fixed election and Tracy well on her way to bringing down the government.

This movie had one thing I really enjoyed, and that was every so often another character start doing the voice over, giving the viewer a chance to see the action from a different persons view. Almost all movies focus in on one character and you see what happened from their point of view. Here, you see one scene from Jim's point of view, then it'll switch over to Tracy, then to Paul, then to Tammy, then back again. It was a fresh idea that kept the pace of the movie going. The acting was superb. I think Reese Witherspoon was born to play this role. The only person I didn't like that much was Paul (Chris Klein). Like I said before, he seemed to be getting stupider as time went on and he didn't seem all that realistic. He didn't want to run for President, but did so because Mr. McAllister wanted him to. But then Jim left him alone. I thought it would have been better if we saw Jim actually helping Paul try and win the election, rather that sitting on the sidelines having affairs and getting stung by bees.

Election is not your typical movie. It's actually well written, well acted, and well directed. I think if the movie was released later in the year it would have serious Oscar potential. I guess the only problem I really had with the story was that it lacked a certain focus. I think too much attention was placed on the affair Jim had in the movie. I think the movie would have been better suited to stay with the school election instead of straying away from it. I know Jim was the central character, but when the movie left the election and into his personal life, it took a little downturn in excitement.

But besides that, Election was very enjoyable and a good diversion from what will sure to be another action driven summer of blockbusters. This would make a good choice to people who can't get in to see that movie that's coming out on May 19th... what's it called?

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