Election

So last night I watched Election, a 1999 film starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick. And it was hilariously funny from the beginning to the end.

The story goes that high-flying Tracy Flick (Witherspoon) is running to be Carver High School President, something she has been aiming towards for as long as she can remember. At first she is running as the only candidate but her morals and ethics teacher Mr.McAllister (Broderick) has other plans - he gets the captain of the football team to run against her (can you see the irony here?) Things start to go horribly wrong in McAllister's life as his candidate's sister also runs, and he begins to fall in love with his best friend's ex-wife.

The film is told in a light-hearted fashion from the viewpoints of the different characters showing their conflicts of interest and their thoughts on each other (which also turns out to be hilarious, particularly when it comes to McAllister talking about Flick). The fact that all of the characters - particularly the candidates for presidency - are all so different, it means that there's some wonderful meeting of minds.

The film put me in the mind of Rushmore which was directed by Wes Anderson (who is brilliant, you've just got to sit down and watch some of his movies) as they both have similar quirky, light-hearted feels. I can see that this would be a film that doesn't wear thin quickly, and that you could watch it time and time again and still laugh! Surely the best comedies do this? If you get the opportunity I recommend you track it down and give it a go - as proof that it isn't one of those teen movies that are alienating to other age groups, my mum watched it with me and was laughing just as hard as me. Enough said!