Comedy

Drama

Election

Paramount Pictures

MTV Films

Bona Fide Productions

United States of America

English

Español

Matthew Broderick

Reese Witherspoon

Chris Klein

Jessica Campbell

Mark Harelik

Phil Reeves

Molly Hagan

Delaney Driscoll

Colleen Camp

Frankie Ingrassia

Matt Malloy

Jeanine Jackson

Holmes Osborne

Loren Nelson

Nicholas D'Agosto

Emily Martin

Jonathan Marion

Amy Falcone

Matt Justesen

Nick Kenny

B.J. Tobin

Christa Young

David V. Wenzel

Joel Parks

Larry Kaiser

Marilyn Tipp

Jeannie Brayman

James Devney

L. Carmen Novoa

Jason Paige

Matt Golden

Heather Koenig

Jillian Crane

Kaitlin Ferrell

John Ponzio

Rohan Quine

Alexander Payne

Van Toffler

James Glennon

Kevin Tent

Jim Taylor

Aurelia Winborn

Bob Akester

Milo Durben

Joe Sanchez

Nathan Carlson

James Ryder

Albert Berger

Rikke Rosbaek

Keith Samples

Jane Ann Stewart

Lisa Beach

Renee Davenport

Ron Yerxa

Wendy Chuck

T.K. Kirkpatrick

David Gale

Rolfe Kent

Tom Perrotta

Nicki Ledermann

Randy N. Barbee

Kyra Panchenko

Kerrie R. Plant

Sean McCarron

Dondi Bastone

Seth Kotok

Emjay Olson

Scott Wolf

Jacobus Rose

Pamela Winn-Barnett

Craig S. Jaeger

Dana Porter

Gary J. Wayton

Casey Hotchkiss

Frank Gaeta

Scott Sanders

Carrie Houk

Gary Boatner

Drew Webster

Jeffrey M. O'Brien

Radan Popović

Yoram Astrakhan

Jon Ailetcher

Eric Flickinger

Nerses Gezalyan

Ken Kaplan

Victor Ho

Denise Fischer

Barbara Harris

Jim Burke

Rebecca Robertson

Mike Mertens

Tracy Thies

George Parra

Patrick Cyccone Jr.

Michael Keller

Mark Choi

Richard Ford

Wes Clowers

Ron Bedrosian

Gary Burritt

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. It’s 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 they’re overt, they’re sorta amusing and fairly essential to the story.

This is a must for anyone who’s a high school teacher as it understatedly satirizes the setting. The flick shows how easy it is for a good teacher with years of quality work to make a thoughtless mistake and suddenly fall out of grace. Yet it also shows redemption. Of course the film pokes fun at the election process and the rivalry of candidates, etc. There are a 2-3 laugh-out-loud scenes with Spaghetti Western music blaring (specifically, Ennio Morricone’s score from 1966’ "Navajo Joe").          

Witherspoon is perfect as the female protagonist (although her face looks like Drew Barrymore on the poster), but I never found her alluring. I suppose Frankie Ingrassia (Lisa) and Jessica Campbell (Tammy) make up for it despite the eye-rolling lesbian component, which isn’t very substantive.

The film runs 1 hour, 43 minutes and was shot in the Omaha, Nebraska, area (Papillion, Bellevue, LaVista, etc.) and, at the end, Washington DC.

GRADE: B-

<em>'Election'</em> 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.

CinemaSerf

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 minutes. The dialogue can be a bit earthy at times, but don't, whatever you do, look for plot complexities nor a thought-provoking script - except, perhaps, in addressing the odiousness of blind ambition and perhaps, 30 years later - it sends us a gentle reminder that if we all just sleep through our respective democratic processes then we will get people like this really running the place.... Klein is quite good as the nice-but-dim "Paul" too!

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 being a tourist in D.C. Suddenly he sees Flick coming out of a government building with some suited D.C. types, and going into a limo. Furious, he flings a full drink cup into its back window. The limo stops and like a bad little boy, he runs away. The regression is complete.

A Scene from ELECTION

Election (1999) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p]

Election - Trailer

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