Review of Election (1999) by Sean S — 20 Feb 2010

(Look, before I get into my actual review, let me give you my background. I first saw the last 30 minutes or so of this film in the early 00s on MTV. Being that I have a prenatal obsession with Matthew Broderick, I became determined to see the whole film.

I have been trying to see it for the last 8 years now, give or take. And today, after more than half a decade of hype, after constant searching, I saw it the whole way through.) What is the difference between ethics and morals? Election teaches us this by example, and the example is the exact opposite of what ethics and morals are.

Our main characters, Tracy Flick and Matthew Broderick (haha), are two of the most unethical, least moralistic people around. Both of them lie and scheme and live meaningless lives, all the while oblivious to these things.

The catalyst for all of the unethical events in this film seems to be Tracy Flick's illegal romance with Matty Brod's best friend, another teacher who ends up getting sacked. Matthew Broderick begins to hate this pathetic, lonely girl so much that it eventually becomes his goal to ruin her life.

Sort of. All that Tracy wants is to be school president. Why does she want this so badly? Like me, she was born with a prenatal obsession - with success. Unfortunately, she sought to achieve, forsaking true friendship, only once experiencing true love, and that was with a teacher who was already married, anyway.

Then Chris Klein as the lovable, kind of stupid sidelined jock Paul comes in at the encouragement of Matthew Broderick to try and derail her, and Tracy gets mad. A third party also enters the election in the form of Paul's awesome cynical adopted sister Tammy, who is a lesbian, whether she admits it or not.

She joins to get back at her "girlfriend" Lisa, who is now dating Paul. But Tammy hates everything, including elections, and makes a cool speech about it, rallying everyone's support. Then a lot of other stuff happens that I don't feel like summarizing and she gets sent to an all-girls' school.

In the end, everyone has attained their own happiness, Matthew Broderick and Tracy's lives seem to be just as pointless as ever, as the still hateful Brod touches upon at the end of the film. (Seriously, he lives in an insanely expensive icebox.

She does god-knows-what in government and still seems lonely as ever.) Paul and Tammy are happy as their lives go back to what they consider normal, although Tammy is setting herself up to be let down again and Paul is just partying.

But he's still lovable! And stupid. And then he breaks the fourth wall and I'm like, "Huh?" Oh yes, and the only ethical person in the movie is Larry Fouch, played by my bro Nick D'Agosto, the oldest teenager in the world.

(He was 27-ish when he was in Rocket Science, still playing a teenager!) Larry LIVES to uphold the ethical code of student government, only to be undermined and let down by the angry civics teacher whose life has gone to crud.

That reminds me, I stinking hate Linda. But who doesn't? Talk about morals, psh. So, what can I really say about this movie? I will say that I liked it, but it CERTAINLY did not live up to the hype.

I will say that the characterization was awesome. I will say that the ending went on for a bit. I will say that it was pretty good. I won't say, though, that the viewer ever gets their definition of ethics.

Instead, they can look to their child (who probably shouldn't be watching, anyway, because this is rated R, unless they're like me and are watching this on TBS where they hilariously blur the monkey genitals at the end but do a pretty good job otherwise) and say, "You wanna know what ethics is? It's the exact opposite of this.

".