Election

Election (1999)
Director: Alexander Payne
Tagline: « Reading, Writing, Revenge. »
Actors:
Jim McAllister
Tracy Flick
Custodian
Paul Metzler
Walt Hendricks
Genres: Comedy, Romance
Rating:  vote average (111’887 votes)
Quotes: « Tammy Metzler: [narrating] It's not like I'm a lesbian or anything. I'm attracted to the person. It's just that all the people I've been attracted to happen to be girls. » « Paul Metzler: [narrating] My leg wasn't bugging me too much and the weather was so nice, and every day after school Lisa and I would go to her house to fuck and have a hot tub. » « Tammy Metzler: [her campaign speech] Who cares about this stupid election? We all know it doesn't matter who gets elected president of Carver. Do you really think it's going to change anything around here? Make one single person smarter or happier or nicer? The only person it does matter to is the one who gets elected. The same pathetic charade happens every year, and everyone makes the same pathetic promises just so they can put it on their transcripts to get into college. So vote for me, because I don't even want to go to college, and I don't care, and as president I won't do anything. The only promise I will make is that if elected I will immediately dismantle the student government, so that none of us will ever have to sit through one of these stupid assemblies again! » [the student body erupts in huge cheers. They start chanting "Tammy! Tammy!"] « Tammy Metzler: Or don't vote for me! Who cares? Don't vote at all! » [they all rise to give her a standing ovation]
Trailer: Trailer
Runtime:103 minutes
Plots: A high school teacher meets his match in an over-achieving student politician. The high school Class President election is approaching and it looks like Tracy Flick is going to win, unopposed. However, teacher Jim McAllister has other plans. He convinces jock Paul Metzler to run, sparking off an interesting chain of events. Perky, overachieving high schooler Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) gets on the nerves of social-studies teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) to begin with, but after she launches her campaign for student-body president and his personal life starts to fall apart, things spiral out of control. 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. Adapting a then-unpublished novel by Tom Perrotta, Payne grounds the absurdity of his central dynamic in the recognizable-the setting is his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, and the accomplished cast is rounded out with nonprofessionals-and distills his closely observed take on deeply flawed humanity to its bitter but stealthily sympathetic essence.
Official website: Criterion

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