Election (1999)

A graying Matthew Broderick opposite a young Reese Witherspoon in a dark comedy/drama about a high school election for student body president that slowly spirals out of control.

I wanted to like Election. As its titular event draws in more and more point-of-view characters (each of whom narrates their thoughts in voice overs), the increasingly complicated motives, contrasted with the banality of the election itself, paint an interesting picture about the nature of seeking power and who is best suited to win it.

The film is hindered, however, by its preoccupation with sex and its inability to fully grapple with the implications of what it is portraying. Sex, too, involves power dynamics, of course, but this thematic coherence doesn’t make it less uncomfortable when the characters being shown in graphic acts are also portrayed as 15 and 17. Worse is Election‘s crass and insensitive handling of a student-teacher relationship (and another teacher lusting after the same student), which the film seems to blame the student for in the same breath that it half-heartedly condemns the teacher. There is also a theme of “illicit” love that, in perhaps a mark of its times, unintentionally equates pedophilia and infidelity with homosexuality (I say “unintentionally” because this last relationship is portrayed as the most sympathetic, but it’s an awkward pairing to say the least).

Finally, the characters (especially Witherspoon’s fantastic portrayal of a hard-working but entitled young woman) are layered and nuanced, but at the end of the day the audience doesn’t really have anyone to root for.

I’m a fan of black comedies, but Election was a little too uncomfortable to sit through.

Dinner Recommendations:

Veal.