Review on “Election”

Poster of "Election"

       Never have I considered, or taken seriously of school elections until I encountered this movie. Directed by Alexander Payne, “Election” (1999) hilariously portrays out some of the unusual but possible complications throughout human life caused by mistakes, overwhelming emotions and differences through a life of a respected High School history teacher, Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) during the period of School President Election.

First of all, I think the actors and actresses of the movie were exceptional- of course, especially the main characters. They understood the characters well, and have really done a good job on noting each one’s characteristics. What I would most comment on is how they used exaggeration and avoided the negative effect (e.g. drawing away the audience due to awkwardness caused by unseemly exaggeration or forced laugh) and created even better understanding of the characters. They fitted the situation well, and showed the audience some of the comical, extreme behavior of human beings when certain things critically go wrong. The film was certainly amusing, being black comedy genre, and did not lose its light even until the denouement after the climax when things were getting resolved. The setting was highly recommendable, too. The film shooting took place in the real high school, and it very highly contributed the realism of the movie.

 

Camera movements and shots contribute greatly of the overall movie, too. I’ve noticed the director cleverly chose to use many close-up shots to fully catch the character’s expression. It worked very well with actors’ exaggeration, and created extra hilarious atmosphere as the audience focused on the funny faces of the character. It also helped with better understanding of the character, gravity of the situation, affect of the situation on the characters and etc. without unnecessary dialogues. Fast jump cuts and panning movement of the camera suited well with overall ecstatic mood of the plot. Point of view shots were also favorable, and helped the audience not get lost between transition of the narrator between main characters as the movie’s plot developed through different point of views of the people involved in the situation. One of my favorite shot was when the bird-eye view shot on the about-to-fall-asleep candidates the night before the voting day slowly zooming out as each of them finishes their prayer. It was one of the few successful zooming out shots and clearly matched well with characters falling asleep.

 

Most ostensible usage of sound in this movie would be non-diagetic sound: the narration.

The story developed through the narration of each character. It was almost like soliloquy of a character in a play, and I could catch what each character was really like, and his/her emotion. One of the main theme of the film –which I worded as “Teachers are humans too, they feel, they can do what you can do, and they can make mistakes”- was so well portrayed by the narration that I was completely drawn in to the movie. Diagetic sounds are also brilliant as some of the ambient sound in the background, especially at the movie’s high school setting, were really the sound from high school class- the director asked the school to resume its normal routine to achieve that sound for film’s realism. OST suited as well- upbeat, exciting music were dominant, matching with the whole plot line

 

The movie overall, despite its adultery and dark theme, is a triumphant one.