Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) is a good guy, a teacher who has been awarded his school's best teacher prize a record-breaking three times.
Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) is young, clean and blonde, with a love of hard work and an ugly, all-consuming ambition. Tracy's already started printing posters and laminating badges for the school body presidential race. She's got her requisite 150 signatures, she looks the part and, more importantly, she's the only campaigner.
Until Jim McAllister takes an interest and persuades injured sportsman Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) to enter the race as well. Paul is well-meaning but dense, a nice but dim chap who has lots of friends but probably isn't going to set the world on fire.
The plot thickens when Paul's lesbian sister decides she wants the job herself, if only to abolish it.
With a cast of well-crafted characters and a plot which refuses to offer simple answers, this is a film which will provoke. Broderick has such an honest face, it was a piece of sharp casting to put him in the role of McAllister. And Witherspoon, with her self-righteous smile and cast-iron hair, provides a glimpse of the golden future ahead of her.
Election is a Film programme that first aired in 1999 and has been classified a 15 certificate.
