Election follows the path of despair for one unfortunate soul who is oblivious to his own unhappiness and dissatisfaction with his life. He masks his own self-loathing in an attack on a teenage girl who overachieves at everything she does. What’s terrific about the film is that it could have been presented with much darker overtones, akin to American Beauty. But it decided to stay light-hearted in its portrayal of a social ecosystem and its miserableness that was no doubt self-similar to the Columbine high school.

It whimsically shows the dynamics of petty high school life without glorifying it like a typical teenage film. And that’s because this is hardly an appellation to teenagers who weigh their investments in activity that will not stretch beyond their high school yearbooks. It’s actually astute to mention that each of these high school figures have no inclination of a future beyond the walls of high school and college. They lack the desire to prepare for a world that is yet known, and in doing so, they fail in the ability to create it when its time has come. I won’t exactly identify the high school teacher Mr. Broderick plays as someone that fits this stock, that failed to live in the beyond and has to therefore settle with being happy with cheap fluorescent lighting and the regurgitation of remedial civics to the apathetic ad naseaum. The character does mention however that his closest colleague fit the mold of someone who never wanted to leave; whose peak was when they were adolescent and still incapable at self-sufficiency yet were able to relish being the center of society. We can suggest, however, based on his juvenile antics he was of the same mold.

And it’s charming how the entire student body election, which means absolutely nothing in reality, symbolizes the waste of public education. The most truthful moment in the entire film is the celebration of its annihilation by the student body itself, as a gesture at their yearning for liberation from the decrepit social machine that segregates human beings from being human. And this is more than just a commentary coming from someone who was antipathetic to participating in a waste of time that is high school social life. The anxiety it stirs in souls who like the students in the film cannot envision being in a reality that is absent of the artifice causes disastrous human development and, as mentioned, has led to murder.

I find the script actually disturbingly sympathetic to the stock jock figure. But this is an apology then to screenwriters in general as it stereotypes them as the sort that seeks to mock the naturally gifted which attract popularity. Indeed the jock is popular but he is incredibly noble, as his prayer to God is the most angelic out of the amusing survey. He wishes the best to his sister whom he loves the most and like a genuine athlete who has mastered the heroics of overcoming uncertainty, is aware enough not to even bother praying for a result he wants. He knows it is out of his control.

Additionally to these idiosyncratic sympathy to the type of personality that is anti-egalitarian is the finish to the film. Here we get to see the mask undisguised of the high school teacher who tried to ruin a little girl’s life because she had the will to give. Something he, as a loser, was never able to tolerate.

Grade: A+