Elections have consequences – and Payne points

The midterm elections are still several months away, but it’s never an inopportune time to revisit Election (1999), helmed by Alexander Payne. The plot revolves around Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick), a respected but increasingly frustrated social studies teacher who develops a deep-seated vendetta against Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), an intensely ambitious overachiever running for class president. To thwart Tracy's unopposed victory, Jim manipulates Paul Metzler (Chris Klein), a popular but dim-witted football player, into joining the race, which eventually spirals further when Paul’s cynical younger sister, Tammy (Jessica Campbell), enters the fray on a platform of total apathy. As the election approaches, Jim's professional ethics and personal life begin to unravel, culminating in a desperate act of sabotage that explores the messy intersection of ambition, ethics, and human frailty.

To listen to a CineVerse group recording of Election, conducted last week, click here.

Compared to other movies set in and about high school, Election is a cut above. It emphasizes strong character development, depicting multidimensional personalities. It doesn’t rely on clichés, formulaic plots, predictable teen sex, and overworn adolescent conflicts. Controversial and overlooked subjects are tackled, including lust and sex between students and teachers, the futility of student government, teenage sexual experimentation, and corrupt faculty. In this way, the comedy isn’t always safe and comfortable. (Pay attention to the clever way apples are motifs used in this movie, which signify not only “teacher’s pet” but sexual temptation.)

Refreshingly, the adolescent perspective isn’t the only one given a lens. There are actually four different narrators at different points. This highlights the complexity of the narrative's perspective, reflecting the evolving impressions formed about each major character by the end of the film. Rather than relying on simple archetypes, the story examines whether individuals appear sympathetic or despicable, ultimately ensuring that no character is unfairly targeted. By presenting every figure with a balanced mix of flaws and strengths, the film avoids a cynical or malicious tone and refrains from gross exaggeration.

This is actually less a movie about high school than personality types. Yet it’s all the more admirable because it casts the actor who portrayed Ferris Bueller – the ultimate 1980s high school rebel – in an opposite role.

Every teen comedy touches on sex at some point: Payne’s film is honest in its approach to sexuality, while other high school films resort to cuteness, crudeness, female objectification, and male gaze conventions. Indeed, Election is progressive for a 1999 picture in its nonjudgmental depiction of a closeted lesbian teenager. Additionally, in the years since its release, Flick can be viewed more sympathetically, especially in a post-Me Too world where audiences are more critical of older men trying to sexually exploit younger women. (Consider that, in 1999, the age of consent in Nebraska, where the story is set, was merely 16.)

Election is practically dripping with irony and satire, and the targets skewered are plentiful. Firmly in the crosshairs are elections and politics in general, and the pointless popularity contest nature of many of these races, on both small and national levels. “Election is on one level a merciless Alaska of the impossibility for America to move beyond two-party partisanship,” per Slant Magazine reviewer Eric Henderson. Consider that this story was influenced partially by the 1992 presidential race, especially the emergence of Ross Perot. In the years since, the film has been dubbed prescient in how Tracy Flick and her ambition loosely resemble Hillary Clinton.

Other satirized subjects include self-serving individuals always looking out for no. 1; cheaters who violate McAllister’s “morals and ethics” to get what they want; life in bland, monotonous suburbia; the ruthless cruelty of teenagers; and pathetic men in midlife crisis mode trying to maintain a locus of power and machismo.

Similar works

• Heathers (1988)
• Fargo (1996)
• Rushmore (1998)
• Ghost World (2001)
• Mean Girls (2004)
• Thank You for Smoking (2005)
• The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

Other films directed by Alexander Payne

• Citizen Ruth (1996)
• About Schmidt (2002)
• Sideways (2004)
• The Descendants (2011)
• Nebraska (2013)
• Downsizing (2017)
• The Holdovers (2023)