Grade:  A

Director:  Alexander Payne		Released:  April 1999
Writer:  Alexander Payne, Tom Perrotta		MPAA Rating:  R
Players:  Reese Witherspoon, Matthew Broderick		Running time:  103 minutes

Ratings System

The glory days of high school, when being handsome made you king and being different made you an outcast (I guess if you were different AND handsome, you were the outcast king?).  Election captures the feeling of American high school extremely well.  It's not so much the students it gets right, it's the faculty.  The way everything is handled in that dead-serious manner that only teachers and administrators have.  The way they think they know what's right, but it's painfully obvious to the students that they are way out of touch.  At least that's how my high school felt.

There's nothing funnier than the scene when Broderick's character gets stung by a bee on his eye.  But it's not just for comedic effect, it works in a filmic sense as well.  It makes him look like he just went three rounds with Mike Tyson, which is equivalent to the beating he is administering to his life.  The bee sting just externalizes it so the viewer can see what he is feeling.  It's quite a brilliant little movie device and Election is filled with them.

- crocoPuffs