Election

.

* *

Cast: Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon, Chris Klein, Jessica Campbell

Director: Alexander Payne

Rating: R16

Opens: Now showing, Village Hoyts cinemas

Review: Greg Dixon


A tricky thing, satire. The best of it is barely detectable from reality, is exceptionally difficult to do and, as a result, is unsurprisingly rare. The worst of it is merely lumpen lampoon, and that's all too common.

Director Alexander Payne's ironic meditation on the nature of elections and the sort of people who stand in them falls - at times rather flatly - somewhere in between.

Broderick is an apparently virtuous, hardworking teacher called McAllister in a generic American school populated by a series of mostly stock "teen" movie characters (though some are given a deliciously vicious spin).

McAllister pretends to himself his life is perfect: he's married, loves his job, respects the kids he teaches.

All of which makes it harder for him to understand why Witherspoon's Tracy Flick gets under his skin.

She's the consummate know-it-all, an ambitious over-achiever, the winner of numerous prizes and now the only candidate for the school's student government president.

Something snaps in McAllister. He starts to believe that the planet would be a better place if the Flicks of the world didn't win elections, and to that end he organises his own candidate to stand in the election, the sweetly dim sports guy Paul (Klein).

A third candidate also emerges, Paul's lesbian sister Tammy (Campbell), but she is simply a minor diversion of plot.

The heart of the film lies is McAllister's conflicts. He teaches ethics and morality ("who can tell me the difference?" he asks his class), though he seems - particular as events fall apart on election day - to be utterly incapable of translating his understanding of these concepts into his own life.

But mostly Election is a character study, and Witherspoon delivers an outstanding, wonderfully obnoxious performance as this particular election's Tory-cum-fascist.

Payne (first film: Citizen Ruth) only achieves satire's heightened sense of reality. He doesn't deliver the king hit of murderous wit required.

His film tries too hard and thinks it's too quirky to really win over its voters.