Election - DVD Review

MOVIE
VIDEO
AUDIO
EXTRAS
OVERALL

One Disc
Anamorphic 2.35:1 Aspect Ratio

English Dolby Digital 5.1
English Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
English Subtitles
Commentary

MOVIE
Rated R for profanity and sexual discussion

I knew a girl like Tracey Flick, the little witch of a high school girl hell bent on having everything go her own way, crushing everything in her path and all with that "aren't I a nice girl" smile and attitude with the adults. In my high school that girl was a pretentious poet/actress who got the lead in every play whenever she tried out and won every poetry/writing contest she entered. That is until I started winning the poetry contests, enraging her to tears. Oh, I knew a Tracey Flick, alright. And I hated her. And I knew teachers who hated her. Which, as we move along, is fairly the plot of this film. Tracey Flick (Reese Witherspoon) is nearly a mirror image of Max Fischer in Rushmore, self centered, on every committee and club possible, running the world from their own little seat. Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) is an American History/Government teacher and the advisor of the Student Government. The election is around the corner, and Tracey is running unopposed.
McAllister goads Paul Metzler (Chris Klein), a former school football star who can't play any longer due to a skiing accident, into running against Tracey, citing that just one choice doesn't make a democracy. This all could be a light and goofy comedy, or a bit of a satire of the electoral process. Instead, Election is a nightmare tour of hatred, ambition and cynicism in the stomping ground that it breeds in like moss, high school. I've often favored British comedies, or even vaguely British ones like A Fish Called Wanda or Bridget Jones's Diary over typical American comedies because they're meaner. MUCH meaner. They're not afraid to expose the awful underbelly of not our society, but of our own minds. If David Lynch made a comedy, this'd be it.
So, all that being said, this IS a comedy, and a raucous one at that. The dialogue is snappy and sounds like conversation, not witty rapport. The slight accent from Omaha, Nebraska calls to mind a much tamer version of that which the locals spoke in Fargo. But top on the list of reasons to watch and fall in love with this movie are the two leads Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon. It's interesting to look at this film from a unique point of view. I said when I reviewed Rushmore that if you took Benjamin Braddock from The Graduate and de-aged him, you'd wind up with Max Fischer, and if you advanced him many years, you'd find yourself with Bill Murray's Herman Bloom character. Election offers a similar thought. If you took Ferris Bueller, perhaps Broderick's penultimate character, and let the weight of the real world in on him for a good twenty years, sucking the marrow of life right out of him, you might wind up with Jim McAllister.
Watching the film again last night, the latest of many viewings, I was again amazed by the place it puts the audience. I wanted him to kill Tracey Flick. It's all her fault. She ruins lives. And she needs to be stopped. I guess it's a tribute to the power of the film, a comedic version of David Mamet's Oleanna perhaps. To make you hate so much. But still love the film.

VIDEO QUALITY
The video looks good, though grainy. At $8.5 million dollars, it was still fairly low budget and has that feel to it. The original 2.35:1 aspect ratio is reproduced well, though, capturing the oddly sweeping scope of the film. Darks are reproduced well, as are skin tones and the colors of school. But all this is nothing to write home about.

AUDIO QUALITY
The audio is good, clear and rich, with moments of true greatness in the 5.1 mix, such as when Tracey gets angry and the Indian cry calls out, filling the room, or during the auditorium scenes, but overall the mix is rather dull, rather. . .comedy, I guess. The dialogue is firmly rooted in the center with sounds mainly played out between the front two speakers, rarely moving to the back.

EXTRAS
I probably should say: EXTRA. There is only one. But luckily, it's a good one. We have a full length audio commentary with Alexander Payne, writer and director of Election. I had an opportunity to meet him and found him to be friendly and chatty, this commentary reflects that. He fills us in on myriad production details, reasoning for locations, the casting process (Chris Klein went to that high school, they cast him while scouting locations) and other miscellaneous production tidbits, never delving into "This is the part where. . ." or what I like to call Friedkinitus (see my Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen review). Unfortunately, that's all the good people at Paramount felt like giving us.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
A great movie that can be watched over and over, each time finding new details and nuances (such as McAllister constantly drinking Pepsi due to the fact that Tracey is a big Coke supporter) and has a truly engaging and informative commentary that never gets too technical. Unfortunately, Paramount's always hefty price tag and lack of more features make me put this one in the wait and see pile. Worth owning, but do you wanna pay for it?