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Movie Description
Director Alexander (CITIZEN RUTH) Payne's second film, based on the novel by Tom Perotta, takes the scandal and mudslinging associated with presidential elections and transposes them to a high school election for student council president in Nebraska- with impossibly sharp, satirical results. Matthew Broderick, in a reversal of FERRIS BUELLER, plays Jim McAllister, a teacher who will stop at nothing to prevent perfect Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), who is running unopposed, from winning the election. Jim, who bears a personal grudge against Tracy, goads a popular but dim football player (Chris Klein) into running against her. This spurs on a series of strange events (both madcap and surprisingly sexual), which add up to an uncommonly funny high school film for adults. Performances are great all-around, and Payne uses shifting narration and a series of freeze frames to give the film a rich and layered feel.
Industry Reviews
"...Briskly paced, painfully funny and pretty much unmissable..." -- 4 out of 5 stars
Total Film - p.98 - James White (06/01/2000)
"...ELECTION is a wonderfully acidulous satire....[The film] turns the usual conventions of the high-school comedy on their head..."
Sight and Sound - p.43 - Geoffrey Macnab (10/01/1999)
"...[An] insidiously funny satire....Smart, sophisticated..."
Variety - p.46-50 - Todd McCarthy (05/19/1999)
"...Mr. Broderick knows how to make a fool of himself in very funny ways, and he gives a sneakily good performance here..."
New York Times - p.E21 - Janet Maslin (04/23/1999)
"...Devilishly subversive....Scathing, smart and serious-funny....When it comes to eloquently telling it like it is, ELECTION puts the nation's political pundits to shame..."
USA Today - Susan Wloszczyna (04/23/1999)
"...Sharp and merciless....A cheerful nightmare that knows just where it wants to go and uses precisely calibrated comic effects to get there..."
Los Angeles Times - Kenneth Turan (04/23/1999)
"...A wicked satire....[Witherspoon] hits her full stride in ELECTION..."
Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert (04/30/1999)
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