Election

Amusing and compelling high school dramedy with Broderick and Witherspoon

When a high achiever student (Reese Witherspoon) runs for president of the student body at her Omaha high school one of her teachers (Matthew Broderick) encourages an amiable jock to run against her (Chris Klein) because he finds her irritating.

Election (1999) is a quirky high school dramedy in the mold of Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), but with a unique plot revolving around a school election. Its not raunchy like the contemporaneous American Pie (except for one line by a teacher early on), but it is adult-oriented as there are several simulated sex scenes between various characters with no nudity. While theyre overt, theyre sorta amusing and fairly es...

'Election' builds relatively slowly though really does become a fun movie by its conclusion. It's most definitely worth a watch.

Matthew Broderick is excellent throughout, as are the likes of Reese Witherspoon and Chris Klein. The films goes to some unexpected places and manages to make it work. And there's a great callback in there too. I will say that I didn't love the internal monologue bits, but they didn't derail the film for me in any major way.

This early outing for Reese Witherspoon ("Tracy Flick") sees her desperate to become class President in her high school. Clever, ruthless and determined - she takes on all comers in her quest for success, and woe betide anyone who gets in her way. Happily hapless teacher Matthew Broderick is charged with overseeing the election campaign, and conscious that his front-runner is a bit of a nightmare manages to convince recently injured school hottie "Paul" (Chris Klein) to stand against her. Though he be thick as two short planks, he is a formidable challenge for "Flick" as most of the school don't appear to be too bright, either... and the fight is on. Her scheming machinations and his attempts to foil her ambitions make for quite a fun 100 m...

Aside from the comedy and political satire, it's a coming-of-age movie of a teenager and her teacher who goes in the opposite direction. Self-control, which is part of growing up is the main theme. Flick, who seems the essence of self-control, is running for class president and goes bananas in the scene where she pulls down her rival's posters. Luck saves her from paying for that and it looks like she learns from it. And teacher McAllister regresses and regresses, first into a teenager when he plans an extramarital affair with his wife's best friend. Then, angry at and hating Flick, he gives into his emotions again and discards some of Flick's votes, soon losing both his marriage and his job. The last scene is of McAllister years later bein...