Election (1999)

Written by CinemaSerf on August 28, 2023

This early outing for Reese Witherspoon ("Tracy Flick") sees her desperate to become class President in her high school. Clever, ruthless and determined - she takes on all comers in her quest for success, and woe betide anyone who gets in her way. Happily hapless teacher Matthew Broderick is charged with overseeing the election campaign, and conscious that his front-runner is a bit of a nightmare manages to convince recently injured school hottie "Paul" (Chris Klein) to stand against her. Though he be thick as two short planks, he is a formidable challenge for "Flick" as most of the school don't appear to be too bright, either... and the fight is on. Her scheming machinations and his attempts to foil her ambitions make for quite a fun 100 minutes. The dialogue can be a bit earthy at times, but don't, whatever you do, look for plot complexities nor a thought-provoking script - except, perhaps, in addressing the odiousness of blind ambition and perhaps, 30 years later - it sends us a gentle reminder that if we all just sleep through our respective democratic processes then we will get people like this really running the place.... Klein is quite good as the nice-but-dim "Paul" too!