Election (1999 film)

Election is a 1999 American political satire film directed by Alexander Payne and with a screenplay by Payne and Jim Taylor based on 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 Oscar 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.

Plot
Jim McAllister is a beloved high school teacher living in 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 imagines as having a secret vindictive and seductive side. Earlier in the year, Jim's best friend Dave Novotny, also a teacher at the school, destroyed his marriage and lost his job by having a sexual relationship with Tracy. Jim is bitter that Dave experiences consequences for his actions, while Tracy's family intervenes to protect her from further damage.

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." In Jim's mind, this is a sign of unbridled ambition and sexual manipulation, and finds it repugnant. With Tracy appearing to have no opposition, Jim decides to humiliate Tracy by encouraging Paul Metzler to enter the race. Paul is a polite and popular football player, sidelined due to a broken leg, leaving him depressed. Jim pushes Paul to declare his candidacy, giving him new purpose. This serves to bring out Tracy's vindictiveness, as she resents Paul's effortless popularity.

Paul's younger sister Tammy is dumped by her girlfriend, Lisa, who says that she is straight and was just "experimenting". Lisa becomes Paul's girlfriend and campaign manager. 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 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.

While working on a yearbook project, Tracy notices that one of her campaign posters has come untaped from the wall. Attempting to fix it, she accidentally rips the poster apart. In a fit of frustrated rage, she destroys 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. Tammy falsely confesses to Tracy's crime even though she witnessed Tracy disposing of the posters. Tammy's name is removed from the ballot, she is expelled and her parents enroll her in a private parochial school for girls, much to her delight.

The day before the election, Jim visits the house of Linda, Dave's ex-wife, to help her with a home repair project, whereupon she initiates a physical relationship by kissing him. Linda asks Jim to rent a motel room for an after-school rendezvous, but never shows up at the motel. When Jim drives over to Linda's house to see what happened, he is stung by a bee on his right eyelid, causing a severe allergic reaction. He returns home to find Linda and his wife talking together. Knowing he has been caught, he spends the night in his car.

The next morning — Election Day — Jim's eyelid is disfigured from the bee sting, but he must oversee the counting of the election ballots. After the ballots are tabulated, it turns out Tracy has won by a single vote. Tracy's one vote margin of victory came about because Paul, feeling it would be dishonorable to vote for himself, voted for Tracy. During the ballot-counting verification, Jim observes Tracy dancing around gleefully in the hall — one of the student vote counters tipped her off that she won — and he secretly disposes of two of Tracy's ballots, 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. Jim's wife kicks him out of the house when he tries to apologize for what happened with Linda.

Divorced and humiliated, Jim leaves Nebraska, choosing to fulfill his longtime dream of moving to New York City, where he becomes a tour guide at the American Museum of Natural History and begins dating a new woman. Tracy gets accepted into Georgetown University, while Paul gets into the University of Nebraska. Tammy finds a new girlfriend at her all-girls school. Jim encounters Tracy one final time on a trip to Washington, D.C., during which he sees her get into a limousine with a male politician. Disgusted by the thought that Tracy's climb up the ladder of success is the result of her calculating and manipulative nature, Jim impulsively hurls a cup of soda at the limo before running away. Jim later speaks to a group of elementary school students at the museum, refusing to respond to the raised hand of an overeager girl who reminds him of Tracy.

Production
Director Alexander Payne had become a fan of the novel by Tom Perrotta on which the film is based; the novel's rights were sold to Payne in January 1997. The novel was inspired by two key events. The first was the 1992 United States presidential election, in which Ross Perot entered as a third party candidate (a move echoed by Tammy Metzler). The second was a 1992 incident at Memorial High School in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, in which a pregnant student was elected homecoming queen, but staff announced a different winner and burned the ballots to cover it up.

The film uses a number of stylized techniques in its storytelling, particularly through the use of freeze frames, flashbacks and voiceovers, which allow sections of the narrative to be delivered from the points of view of the four main characters.

Alternate ending
The film's original ending was not known until a rough workprint of it was found in a box of VHS tapes at a yard sale in 2011. In the alternate ending, Jim stays in Omaha and becomes a used car salesman instead of moving to New York. Tracy encounters Jim while looking to buy a car and the two settle their differences before she has him sign her yearbook.

Reception
Election was not a box office success as it grossed only $17.2 million against a budget of $8.5-$25 million.

The film received critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 93%, based on 107 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The critical consensus reads, "Election successfully combines dark humor and intelligent writing in this very witty and enjoyable film." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 83 out of 100, based on 33 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B-" on scale of A to F.

Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars out of four, praising Witherspoon and Payne, and saying, "...here is a movie that is not simply about an obnoxious student, but also about an imperfect teacher, a lockstep administration, and a student body that is mostly just marking time until it can go out into the world and occupy valuable space". Todd McCarthy of Variety magazine wrote: "Brandishes the sort of intelligent wit and bracing nastiness that will make it more appealing to discerning adults than to teens who just want to have fun."

Election is ranked #61 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies" and #9 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the "50 Best High School Movies", while Witherspoon's performance was ranked at #45 on the list of the "100 Greatest Film Performances of All Time" by Premiere. According to Payne, it is also President Barack Obama's favorite political film.

Home media
Election was released on DVD on October 19, 1999 and Blu-ray on January 20, 2009. A special edition Blu-ray was released by The Criterion Collection on December 16, 2017, with a 4K restoration of the film.