Election Reviews

Topping the league table of recent high-school movies, this is the rightful heir to the John Hughes youth-antics tradition. The casting of Matthew Broderick (familiar to many as determined truant Ferris Bueller) as a devoted teacher trying to prevent manipulative overachiever Reese Witherspoon from becoming student president is inspired. Director/co-writer Alexander Payne is repaid by his star with a performance of sincere, if muddled, idealism. Pitted against jock Chris Klein (a pretender for Keanu's slacker crown) and his lesbian sister (Jessica Campbell making a revelatory debut), Witherspoon's blend of corruption and compassion slyly satirises contemporary American politics, while George Washington Carver High School serves as a microcosm of fin-de-siècle society. Astute, offbeat and uproarious.

Witty, inventive satire that, although given a high-school setting, makes telling points about the politics and underhand methods involved in all kinds of power struggles.

"...ELECTION is a wonderfully acidulous satire....[The film] turns the usual conventions of the high-school comedy on their head..."

Topping the league table of recent high-school movies, this is the rightful heir to the John Hughes youth-antics tradition. The casting of Matthew Broderick (familiar to many as determined truant Ferris Bueller) as a devoted teacher trying to prevent manipulative overachiever Reese Witherspoon from becoming student president is inspired. Director/co-writer Alexander Payne is repaid by his star with a performance of sincere, if muddled, idealism. Pitted against jock Chris Klein (a pretender for Keanu's slacker crown) and his lesbian sister (Jessica Campbell making a revelatory debut), Witherspoon's blend of corruption and compassion slyly satirises contemporary American politics, while George Washington Carver High School serves as a microcosm of fin-de-siècle society. Astute, offbeat and uproarious.

Witty, inventive satire that, although given a high-school setting, makes telling points about the politics and underhand methods involved in all kinds of power struggles.

"...ELECTION is a wonderfully acidulous satire....[The film] turns the usual conventions of the high-school comedy on their head..."

"...Mr. Broderick knows how to make a fool of himself in very funny ways, and he gives a sneakily good performance here..."

This remarkable film may be set in high school, but its satiric take on moral corruption, political chicanery, adultery... read more on Time Out

"...Briskly paced, painfully funny and pretty much unmissable..." -- 4 out of 5 stars