Election (1999)

(In theaters, May 1999) This film despite what one might infer from the plot (which revolves around a High-School Council presidential race), is too original to be simply considered a “teen movie”. Unfortunately, as with Rushmore, it’s not enough to be original is you want to be enjoyable. Election is -fittingly enough for its chosen sub-genre- a film with identity problems. It’s a tale where the protagonist is not the good guy and the antagonist is not the bad girl. It’s a tragedy with pretensions of comedy seen through the eyes of the loser who thinks he did the right thing. I ended up cheering for Tracy Flick and agreeing with her assertion that “great minds are always brought down by idiots”. As a former High School council president, I experienced a bit of flashback when a candidate voted for the other because “it didn’t seem right to vote for myself”: Been there, done that, won the election. Election, on the other hand, is a mixed bag of elements not fully integrated.