Matthew Broderick
James T. 'Jim' McAllister
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Election is a 1999 American black comedy film directed by Alexander Payne from a screenplay by Payne and Jim Taylor, based on Tom Perrotta's 1998 novel of the same name. The plot revolves around a student body election and satirizes politics and high school life.
- Election
Election is a 1998 novel by Tom Perrotta about a high school...
- Tracy Flick
Tracy Enid Flick is a fictional character who is the subject...
- Phil Reeves
Phil Reeves (born January 12, 1953) is an American film and...
- Jessica Campbell
Campbell was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. [3] Her acting...
- Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta was born in Summit, New Jersey, and raised in...
- Mark Harelik
In 1987, he moved to Los Angeles where he co-wrote, with...
- Election
In Alexander Payne's satire Election, the teacher becomes unhealthily obsessed with cutting his student down to size, covertly backing a spoiler candidate to stop her from steamrolling to victory, and putting in motion a series of dirty tricks and reckless promises with uncanny real-world political parallels.
- Overview
- Plot
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Election is a 1999 American black comedy-drama film directed and written by Alexander Payne and adapted by him and Jim Taylor from Tom Perrotta's 1998 novel of the same title. The plot revolves around a high school election and satirizes both suburban high school life and politics. The film stars Matthew Broderick as Jim McAllister, a popular high school social studies teacher in suburban Omaha, Nebraska, and Reese Witherspoon as Tracy Flick, around the time of the school's student body election. When Tracy qualifies to run for class president, McAllister believes she does not deserve the title and tries to stop her from winning.
Although a box office bomb, Election received critical acclaim. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, a Golden Globe nomination for Witherspoon in the Best Actress category, and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film in 1999.
Jim McAllister is a beloved high school teacher living in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska, whose enthusiastic involvement in school activities masks his frustration with other aspects of his life. Tracy Flick is an overachieving senior whom Jim sees as having a secret vindictive and sexual side. Earlier in the year, Tracy had an affair with another teacher, Jim's best friend Dave Novotny. When the affair was discovered, Dave was fired and divorced by his wife Linda; Tracy, however, walked away with her reputation unscathed.
Tracy announces to Jim (who is in charge of organizing the school's student government) that she is running for student body president, telling him they "will be spending a lot of time together." Jim sees this as unbridled ambition and sexual manipulation, and finds it repugnant. With Tracy appearing to have no opposition, Jim decides to teach Tracy a lesson in humility by encouraging another student, Paul Metzler, to enter the race. Paul is a polite and popular football player, who has been sidelined due to a broken leg, leaving him depressed. Jim convinces Paul to declare his candidacy, giving him new purpose. This serves to bring out Tracy's vindictiveness, as she resents Paul’s effortless popularity. Meanwhile, Paul's younger sister Tammy is dumped by her lover, Lisa, who says that she is straight and was just "experimenting." Lisa quickly becomes Paul's new girlfriend and campaign manager, in part to antagonize Tammy. In retaliation, Tammy decides to run for president as well, with a nihilistic platform that student government is a sham.
During a school assembly to hear the candidates' final campaign speeches, Tracy draws only polite applause while Paul initially receives a warm reception (despite giving a lackluster and halting speech), while Tammy delivers a defiant address in which she denounces the election and expresses her intention to dissolve the student government if elected. This rallies the student body to a standing ovation. As a result of her subversive speech, Tammy is suspended and her name removed from the ballot.
While working on a yearbook project at school two nights later, Tracy notices that one of her posters has come untaped from the wall. In her attempt to fix it, she accidentally rips the poster apart. In a fit of frustrated rage, she destroys and removes all of Paul's campaign posters. The following day when Jim confronts Tracy with his suspicion that she was responsible, Tracy claims innocence and threatens legal action against the school. However, Tammy falsely confesses to Tracy's crime even though she had witnessed Tracy disposing of the refuse by the town factory. Tammy is expelled and her parents enroll her in a private parochial school for girls, much to her delight.
On the day before the election, Jim pays a visit to Linda's house to help her with a home repair project, whereupon she initiates a physical relationship by kissing him. Linda then asks Jim to rent a motel room for an after-school rendezvous, but she apparently has a change of heart and never shows up at the motel. When Jim drives over to Linda's house to see what happened, he heads to the back yard where he has the misfortune of being stung by a bee on his right eyelid, causing a severe allergic reaction. He later returns home to find Linda and his wife talking together. Knowing he's been caught, he spends a miserable night in his car.
The next morning — Election Day — Jim's right eyelid is completely shut and disfigured from the bee sting, but he must still oversee the counting of the election ballots at school. After all the ballots are tabulated, it turns out Tracy has won by a single vote. Ironically, Tracy's one vote margin of victory came about because Paul Metzler, feeling it would be somehow dishonorable to vote for himself, voted for Tracy instead. During the ballot-counting verification, Jim observes Tracy dancing around gleefully in the hall — one of the student vote counters had tipped her off that she had won before the official announcement of the count — and he decides to take matters into his own hands by secretly disposing of two of Tracy’s ballots and declaring Paul the winner. When a janitor discovers the two discarded ballots in the trash and presents them to the principal, Jim is forced to resign. To add insult to injury, Jim's wife kicks him out of the house when he tries to apologize for what happened with Linda.
•Matthew Broderick as Jim McAllister
•Reese Witherspoon as Tracy Enid Flick
•Chris Klein as Paul Metzler
•Jessica Campbell as Tammy Metzler
•Phil Reeves as Principal Walt Hendricks
•Molly Hagan as Diane McAllister
Election is a 1999 American satirical teen dramedy film adapted from Tom Perrotta's 1998 novel of the same name, directed and co-written by Alexander Payne and starring Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon, Chris Klein, and Jessica Campbell.
Tracy Flick is running unopposed for this year’s high school student election. But Jim McAllister has a different plan. Partly to establish a more democratic election, and partly to satisfy some deep personal anger toward Tracy, Jim talks football player Paul Metzler to run for president as well.
Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick), a well-liked high school government teacher, can't help but notice that successful student Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) uses less than ethical tactics to get...
- (116)
- Comedy
- R
Apr 30, 1999 · She’s the subject of Alexander Payne‘s “Election,” a wicked satire about an election for student government president, a post Tracy wants to win to go along with her collection of every other prize in school. What sets this film aside from all the other recent high school movies is that it doesn’t limit itself to the world view of ...
