Election

A decade ago, teen sex comedies were in their glory. Films like American Pie paved the way for several sequels, spin offs and imitators, not to mention launching the careers of many actors. They brought raunchy humor out from being films with moderate box office potential to almost sure-thing blockbusters. But there’s one teen romp from the era that took a different and darker direction. Alexander Payne’s Election not only made the world take notice of its star Reese Witherspoon, but it also took the sleaze of the teen comedy and spun it into something that’s both hugely entertaining and extremely insightful.

Witherspoon plays high school senior Tracy Flick, the most eager of students ever to walk the halls of an American high school. In class it’s like her hand is attracted to an imaginary magnet on the ceiling as she’s constantly raising it to wow her teachers with her know-it-all knowledge. Tracy’s college applications probably read like a checklist of every committee and cause she could possibly sign up for. But even with all the volunteering, there’s still one important job she has to earn – school president.

Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) is Carver High’s “cool” teacher. He aims to bring the humanities alive each and every class, getting even the most timid and shy students to try and be a little more like Tracy – at least in the getting them to speak up in class kind of way. Like Tracy, Jim wants to be the best he can in his own little world. But now that he’s grown up and settled in his career, marriage and life in general he sees that there’s little else to strive for. With the path he’s on, what he has is it for the next 25 years. He might get a promotion one day. He might even get a bigger house. But other than that it’s status quo and that’s a hard thing to accept.

With the student election at hand, Carver High becomes a political battleground as Jim tries to stop Tracy from achieving her dream by convincing the school’s doe-eyed jock Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) to join the race. Things get dirty and the balance between morals and ethics, which is brought up directly in the film, is thrown into question.

At its core, Election is a bleak film that casts hope as merely a dream. Payne argues that lasting success is a dirty game that in order to win you must be aware. People like Paul can coast through life thinking they’re doing well but that’s simply a smokescreen. The true go-getters like Tracy and, eventually, Jim toss ethics aside. When there’s something to be achieved, there are no rules.

While Payne may go to extremes to make his point, he does so in a way that tells a great story with excellent characters and lots of laughs. The plot continues moving the election forward, culminating in the big day where Jim and Tracy are at their most desperate. At this point the stakes are so high that the loser is bound to lose everything they’ve worked so hard to achieve. But the winner – well, they get glory. Sure, it’s tainted and, to most, disgusting, but who cares when you’re the winner? They’re the ones who get to write history.

Election could be categorized as a teen comedy. It’s got a lot of the characteristics. But it’s also a lot more. It has a lot to say and was somewhat prophetic considering the shady dealings in the Presidential election that happened a year after Election was released. Payne might be uncovering some of the darker parts of human nature, but it’s through observation that we ultimately learn and grow.

Election Blu-ray Review

Election‘s Blu-ray debut is a quiet affair with a solid feature presentation and not much else. The film is shown in a crisp widescreen 1080p high definition picture with a primary English audio track in 5.0 Dolby TrueHD. Complimentary dubbed tracks are in 5.0 Dolby Digital Spanish and French. The disc also has subtitles in these three languages as well as Portuguese. The only bonus feature is a commentary track from writer-director Alexander Payne.