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Future generations of actors may want to examine Matthew Broderick's performance in Election for lessons in how to portray spiralling madness. It isn't all ticks and hystrionics, but a growing look of panic on his face. It reminded me a great deal of William Macy's portrayal of the same emotions in Fargo, actually, but Broderick is better.

The movie itself is an absolutely savage satire of the political process distilled from a marvelous allegory in which a high school student council election stands in for the American political system. The presidency is coveted by Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), the sort of bitchy know it all over-achiever who lays claim to the office by a perverse sort of divine right and goes about getting it as ruthlessly as she can. In her path is Broderick's Jim McCallister, a civics teacher who sees Tracy for what she is and despises her. He throws an obstacle into her path in the form of good natured, popular jock Paul Metzler (Chris Klein). The battle is joined. It is complicated when Paul's sister Tammy (Jessica Campbell), a budding lesbian who craves a transfer to Catholic girl's school, enters the race for her own reasons. Her speech at the election assembly (held in the gymmasium, of course) is one of the highlights of the movie and speaks to the lazy voter in all of us.

The point of the film, at least from my vantage point, is that the Tracy Flicks of the world have been running for office ever since high school, living unhappy lives and making the rest of us unhappy in the process. The film hammers this home with deceptive delicacy. Parts of this resemble the Scorsese of Goodfellas with its freeze frames and voice-over narration, parts resemble Michael Ritchie's underappreciated Smile with its middle-American high school confidential feel, and parts of it lean heavilly on what director Alexander Payne learned with his last film, Citizen Ruth, particularly in the equanimity with which it takes its potshots. Mostly, though, it resembles real life. The world it presents is recognizable. It really IS Omaha. This makes its satire even more brutal. It isn't distorting reality at all. I'm often asked why I would want to see real life in the movies, since I see real life every day. Well, all I can say is that, sometimes, real life in a movie makes me see the real life of my everyday world a little more clearly. After seeing Election, I'm a little bit horrified by that thought.