MONDAY, APRIL 26, 1999

'Election' winner among teen flicks

By Tina Dhamija

On-line Forty-Niner

No one would have ever guessed that the tables would turn for ditch-day king Ferris Bueller. Matthew Broderick, once known for his role as a defiant teen dodging high school authority in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," stars as a high school authority figure in "Election."

Broderick plays Jim McAllister, a popular teacher at a high school in Omaha, Neb., who is in the midst of a mid-life crisis and a student body election.

Running for president is the high school's alarmingly ambitious overachiever, Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon).

Tracy becomes Jim's antagonist character, and treats high school like the first step in the master plan of her life-long career strategy.

Jim sees Tracy's ambition as annoying and repulsive, as she always seems to end up on top - even when she does not deserve it.

The high school presidency is almost a given for Tracy because nobody is running against her. Jim decides that he must stop her reign of go-getting by recruiting a ridiculously popular football hero to run against her. The plot thickens when a third-party candidate, a jilted lesbian teen, takes to the race as well.

"Election" is a teen movie, but it is not as stupid nor as predictable as many of the other teeny-bopper movies that have recently taken to the screen. The movie plays upon some very funny aspects of human behavior, especially in the areas of how much people lie to themselves and what really motivates them to behave the way they do.

Jim is likable even though he is not the nicest guy. Witherspoon's portrayal of the shrill and ruthless Tracy is excellent. Clad in tweed skirts, sweater vests and turtlenecks, she transforms into an edgy, fanatically prim Martha Stewart type who was raised to believe she must get ahead to be somebody.

Overall, the film is very funny, with some brilliant freeze-frame shots that give way to some satirical, first-person narration, courtesy of director Alexander Payne.

A minimal amount of cheap shock value remains, but the vulgarity behind it belongs in the film.