B-Movies and Couch Classics: Election

B-Movies and Couch Classics
Election

by Arik Ben Treston

Election
Paramount Pictures, 1999
It’s that time of the year again. Time to cast your mallets for the lesser of two evils. All cynicism aside, it’s actually time to watch a good film that’s making its way onto videocassette this month. Director Alexander Payne follows up his brilliant 1996 comedy Citizen Ruth with Election. A biting look at the electoral process of an all-important high school election and the lunacy that it brings to its cast of characters in the game of luck. This film represents a more grown up product for co-producer MTV Films — hopefully a trend that will continue with them.

Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon, fresh from Pleasantville and Cruel Intentions) is an Über-achiever whose sole purpose that year is to get elected as student government president. Student Council advisor, Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) realizes that having someone like Tracy become president would not be a good thing — if for no other reason that they would then have to spend a lot of time together. Not a good idea considering what happened to the last teacher who spent time with Tracy.

Jim hatches a plot to stop this unstoppable force by convincing the school’s star quarterback, Paul, (Chris Klein, American Pie) to run against the unopposed tornado (this causes Paul’s sister to join in, too, with hilarious results and twists). The fun begins as war is waged and all the players must fight for their spot in Carver High history.

Payne (with co-writer Jim Taylor) stays away from creating cardboard characters that we have to easily like or hate. Even a machine like Tracy is allowed to show frailty and humanity … all in moderation, of course. Tracy is so driven and intent in her pursuits in life that she cannot fathom the notion that people might not want her to succeed. She has ensconced herself in a bubble that keeps most criticism out. This way she can keep her mind focused and sharp in order to reach all her goals.

Broderick’s character offers him a nice change of pace. This isn’t Ferris Bueller. Perhaps Jim is someone who, deep down, wanted to be Ferris, but never knew how. Seeing Mr. McAllister drive around in a tiny Ford Festiva in his schlumpy looking coat and swollen eye, we just want him to do better, to make something out of himself and not spend his life ruining it with stupidity. He’s a very flawed man. Whether it be in his marriage or in his extra-curricular love life, he doesn’t seem to be grounded in any particular place, and so he can wander off to try to stop teenage girls from becoming student body leaders. He has a fear of Tracy. Behind all the smiles and cupcakes, Mr. M. sees the ‘evil’ in this girl, or at least in the situation, and he feels that if he doesn’t stop her, no one will.

The film is a great take on the everyday dramas we concoct out of our lives. Some of us need to fail or we need to win, no matter the situation. We can find a way to make big productions out of little things. This is Jim’s production that — in his life and in this instance — turns into the making of Apocalypse Now in its transformation into a creature that Jim no longer controls. It has been set free, and now only time and fate can tell what will eventually happen. At least we can watch from afar as observers, and laugh at the lives that aren’t (hopefully) like ours.

Other great films that share electoral and political themes include:

Warren Beatty’s biting satire Bulworth (1998, 20TH Century Fox.) Beatty plays J. Billington Bulworth, a wealthy Senator running for re-election, who is actually trying to commit suicide (the real kind, not the political kind) but he can’t seem to do it.

Another fantastic film is Hal Ashby’s classic Being There (1979, Warner Brothers.) Peter Sellers stars as Chauncey Gardner, a simple minded gardener who, by various means, leads to his meeting the President and, in effect, becoming a media sensation.

Also, check out Rob Reiner in The American President (1995, Universal Pictures) the story of the President as a widower and what it takes to try to live a private life while living in the public eye.