Election
Ferris Bueller is finally all grown up. In Election, Matthew Broderick plays the gray templed Jim McAllister, a teacher (of all things). There's a sly little nod to Ferris Bueller's Day Off at the beginning of the film as Mr. McAllister showers in the locker room before class and slicks his hair in the mirror in exactly the same way Ferris did before his truancy adventures.
But there is where the similarity ends. While no classic on the scale of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Election is a refreshingly smart high school satire. I was discussing with a 19 year old a few months ago that kids who are currently in high school don't have any films they can call their own. My graduating class (not that far removed - I'm 25) had films like Ferris Bueller, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, St. Elmo's Fire, Some Kind Of Wonderful - all those Molly Ringwald/Brat Pack flicks that we saw in high school.
As if to prove me wrong, Hollywood has released a deluge of teen flicks in the last few months: 10 Things I Hate About You, Varsity Blues, She's All That, and so on. I don't think I'm being too biased to suggest that none of those films have approached the level of intelligence, wit or insight that made The Breakfast Club a bona fide classic. Election isn't quite there either, but it mines a different, darker side to the high school experience - it's closer to Heathers than Pretty in Pink.
Tracy Flick is the kind of relentlessly overachieving, driven go-getter whose faux-chipper demeanor masks a deep need to succeed that verges on the pathological. She's the kind of girl who is the head of every club she belongs to and thrusts her hand into the air because she always has the right answer. These kids always made me sick in high school, and it turns out that teachers aren't always so fond of them either. At least, Jim McAllister isn't; he finds her spunkiness as irritating as the rest of us.
His friend and co-worker, however, likes Tracy more than a teacher should, and crosses an inappropriate line. It could be that McAllister dislikes Tracy because she helped get his friend fired, and maybe it's just her personality, but when she inevitably runs for student body president and finds herself unopposed, McAllister decides to take action. He hand picks a challenger to run against Tracy, a popular jock named Paul Metzler who is short on brains but big in charm, and thus begins the battle royale. In a twist I won't disclose, things get messy when Paul's angry lesbian sister Tammy throws her hat in the ring too.
As we all know, America isn't ready for a three-party system, particularly when the underdog starts telling the truth. Tammy's appeal to voter apathy during her election speech is one of the highlights of the movie, and underscores the parallels to grown-up politics that Election often alludes to. The film isn't about high school as much as it is about the kinds of people who get involved in politics, and the maneuvering that goes on behind the scenes when the "wrong" people start making noise.
It's also about how teachers can get too involved with their students. In the course of three days, McAllister sends his life into a tailspin, managing to cheat on his wife, damage his reputation and threaten his job just to win a personal vendetta against Tracy. It's a credit to the film that although Tracy is mostly seen as the enemy, she is also presented as a hard working kid who is trying hard to achieve against the odds. The other candidates are also not as clear-cut as first may seem, with double-crosses and hidden agendas coming out as the election comes closer.
Student Council really is a microcosm of American politics: people with aspirations beyond their abilities schmooze, lie, cheat and generally beg the voters to give their support. The problem is that people who want positions of power that badly are always the people you least want in charge. Election makes this point abundantly clear - it's hard not to look at Tracy and see a 17 year old Clinton, Quayle or Gore, desperate for acclaim and driven mad by the thought of losing.
With solid performances all around and a healthy dose of cynicism, Election draws its targets accurately and hits them square. Publicity hounds, dumb jocks, flawed teachers, bored and misguided teens, bull headed administrations - all are presented as complex characters, and all are skewered by the time the credits roll around. It may not be a feel-good movie, but then, who among us ever lived through an election or a high school that felt anything other than interminable, stifling and petty?
- Jared O'Connor
MOVIES
All Content © 1997, 1998, 1999 Jared O'Connor and Michael Baker