I Finally Watched: 'Election'

While browsing the movies available on Hulu recently, I noticed one that I have seen bits and pieces of but never beginning to end: Election.

Based on the 1998 novel by Tom Perrotta, Election tells the story of a high school student government election on steroids. Overachiever Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) is furious when civics teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) convinces injured jock Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) to run against her for student government president. The race becomes even more interesting when Paul’s rebellious and cynical younger sister, Tammy, announces her candidacy to piss off Paul’s girlfriend. Posters are torn down, ballots are discarded, and everybody gets what they deserve (oddly) in a dark but funny tale about morality and ethics.

Election is a fun but disturbingly accurate analogy of real-world politics and elections. Watching it now as an adult who votes and (tries to) keep track of what’s going on in the world, Election feels very familiar. According to Wikipedia, the novel is inspired by the 1992 presidential election and an incident at a high school in Wisconsin, where a pregnant student was elected homecoming queen but staff burned ballots and announced a different winner. I have always felt that high school can be a microcosm of real life, and Election is a good example of that.

The movie employs flashbacks and voiceovers to provide backstory and context. All four of the main characters are involved. It works. I’m not a big fan of nonlinear storytelling, especially when it involves multiple characters, but I had no problem with it in Election. It feels natural, and the segues are seamless.

The ending is weird. It bookends the story, but it left me unsatisfied. I also did not like how a potentially explosive and pivotal scene was skipped and summarized. A lot of drama was left off screen.

Election is an interesting trip back to high school in the late nineties. It is another teen movie released when I was a teen that I did not see at the time (or watch all the way through; I remember catching parts of it on HBO at the time). The movie is set in suburban Omaha, and the school scenes were filmed on-site at Papillion-LaVista High School, presumably during the school year with real high school students as extras. That provides an authentic feel, à la 10 Things I Hate About You, and it made me wonder: were striped sweaters really that popular in the late nineties? Apparently, especially in suburban Omaha. On that note, Tracy seems like a throwback fashion-wise.