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'Election' shows Payne's 'Citizen Ruth' no fluke

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"Election"

Directed by: Alexander Payne

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

Rated: R

The big movie opening this weekend is "The Mummy," a revamping of yet another horror movie classic. Why not? We've had modern, big-budget versions of "Frankenstein" and "Dracula," so staples like "The Wolfman," "The Invisible Man" and "The Mummy" seem destined (or doomed) for high-tech remakes.

Without a doubt, this multimillion dollar film starring teen heartthrob Brendan Fraser, featuring state-of-the-art special effects by Industrial Light and Magic and sporting a glossy, high-profile preview will be the top-grossing film of the week and several more to come.

For every "Mummy" and "Star Wars" blockbuster that comes along, there are always a few smaller, more personal films that tend to slip through the cracks. Such may be the case with Alexander Payne's dark, dark comedy, "Election."

Payne is no stranger to social satire. His 1996 debut, "Citizen Ruth," starred Laura Dern as a glue-huffing loser who, finding herself pregnant (again), becomes the poster child for both the pro-choice and anti-abortion movements.

One of the most unique things about Payne's approach to satire is the fact that in "Citizen Ruth" he never chooses sides. One manipulative hypocrite is as bad as the other, wherever they stand politically. That's a tough line to walk in the movies, where audiences tend to want things shown as absolutes.

Though "Election" is set in a high school George Washington Carver High, where ironically 99 percent of the students are about as WASP-y as can be its themes run much deeper. Most of the main characters are archetypes of American society.

Reese Witherspoon perfectly nails a comic performance as Tracy Flick, the classic know-it-all, do-it-all, perky 'n' pert kid who always has her hand up first in class. On the surface she seems sweet, and you don't know what it is, but there's something about her you just don't like.

Then there's Matthew Broderick as super-teacher Jim McAllister. He's the affable pal whom the students all call "Mr. M." He views Tracy with both a sense of wonder and repulsion, and not just because she ruined the life of a fellow teacher who fell a little too much under Tracy's spell.

The big news at Carver is the upcoming student government election. Tracy is running, unopposed, for president. McAllister has a deep-seated uneasy feeling about this and encourages a good-natured, popular jock named Paul Metzler to help the democratic process work better by entering the race.

When Tracy finds out who put Paul up to this, and we see her eyes turn to slits and her nostrils flare, we know, then and there, things will not end well for good ol' Mr. M.

A third candidate puts another twist in the election. Paul's little sister, Tammy, who is going through a time of troubled sexual awareness, enters the race mostly to get back at her brother and his new girlfriend. Although unpopular, Tammy wins a lot of support when she proclaims that her first act as president will be dismantling the student government so "we'll never have to sit through one of these stupid assemblies again."

Before the election, Tammy manages to get herself expelled, and her parents decide that strict measures are needed. Much to her delight, they send her to an all-girl Catholic school.

In the meantime, McAllister is having his own problems, in and out of Carver High. He has fallen for the ex-wife of a friend (the teacher whose life was ruined by Ms. Flick) and in a truly hilarious scene ends up getting a bee sting in the eye when he thought he was going to get something else entirely.

The movie is encapsulated in one brilliant scene when we see the three candidates saying their prayers. Each character is perfectly summarized while talking with the Lord. As in "Citizen Ruth," none of the characters or situations here are cut-and-dried, and Payne doesn't really take sides.

While things eventually turn out the way we knew they would, the road traveled makes the trip well worth it.

There are no explicit sex scenes or nudity in "Election," but there are a number of sexual situations, and at times the language gets quite, shall we say, frank. So, if you're offended by this kind of talk, the film will probably make you uneasy.

Other than that, Payne has proven with his second outing that "Citizen Ruth" (available on video and highly recommended) was not a fluke, and he's a director with a firm grasp on deft social satire.

(Jim Wunderle works at Associated Video Producers and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.)

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