Election

They’ll tell you not to use voiceover in your screenplay. They’ll tell you that voiceover is a crutch for writers who can’t handle visual exposition, that voiceover “tells” when film should “show,” that voiceover is redundant and a cheap gimmick for covering up holes in a plot. They’ve been spending too much time with that first version of Blade Runner and not enough with Sunset Boulevard.

Also: Election. Oh, man, Election. I love this movie.

For the newcomers, Election is the story of overachieving high school student Tracy Flick and the teacher who attempts to thwart her dreams—or as Tracy puts it, her destiny. The plot interweaves the narration of four characters, each coming at events from their own unique perspective. In addition to Tracy, there’s Mr. McAllister, the teacher; Paul Metzler, the genuinely nice idiot quarterback; and Paul’s “not a lesbian” sister, Tammy.

Love her or hate her, Tracy Flick is iconic. We all knew a Tracy Flick in high school. Some of us maybe were Tracy Flick.

Oh, and there’s one more thing you should know about Tracy—

The story is narrated in turns by these four main characters, and this voiceover narration gives the film its distinctive heart and humor. There’s such delicious irony as they tell us their various versions of the truth, putting themselves in the best possible light, while the action on screen counters their words to reveal how self-deluded they all really are.

My Mom always tells me I'm different—you know, special.

“Story experts” will tell us that when using voiceover narration in your film, you should still be able to understand the story even if the voiceover were to be removed. I’m not sure that’s true with Election—or maybe you could understand it, but you’d miss out on so much nuance and character motivation that the movie wouldn’t be worth watching.

Structurally, once again we see three basic acts featuring setup, conflict, and resolution. A bit past eight minutes into the movie we get one of the greatest inciting incidents of all time, the "one more thing you should know about Tracy" scene. It's this revelation of Tracy's affair with Dave Novotny that drives Mr. McAllister's unease around her, leading him to coax Paul into running for president. And then there's a solid midpoint that turns Mr. McAllister's life upside down (when he helps Linda with her "plumbing problem"), resulting in the reckless despair and anger that allow him to throw the election in the third act.

I don't know why, but Lisa decided she wanted to hurt me, and she knew exactly what to do.

One of the great things about Election is how effortlessly it unites the stories of four very different people, each with very different goals. Tracy runs for school president because she believes it's her destiny, part of her big plan for greatness. She's ambitious, self-righteous, and ruthless when threatened. Mr. McAllister, with personal problems at home, can't seem to take the concerns of his students seriously—and his animosity toward Tracy is driven at least in part by his repressed desire for her. Paul runs for president only reluctantly, at Mr. McAllister's urging, and genuinely wants the best for everyone involved. He remains consistently oblivious to everyone else's underhandedness. Tammy, who couldn't care less about the election, runs for president to get back at ex-girlfriend Lisa—and in a great plot twist she uses the evidence of Tracy's vandalism not against Tracy but to get herself expelled and transferred to an all-girl school. Everybody wins!

Well, maybe not everybody. Adult Ferris pretty much gets what he deserves. His fling with Linda invites a rapid cascade of insult upon injury. He gets stood up, stung by a bee, ratted out to his wife, and kicked out of his house all in one afternoon. He spends the night in a car then has to move into a motel where he loses a fight with a vending machine. He gets caught throwing a high school election, loses his job, and goes viral with his shame. His wife divorces him. Former students spit at him. And it all results directly from his own actions. Let that be a lesson to you!

(The lesson I'm talking about, of course, is not that you shouldn't cheat on your partner or rig elections, but that if you're a storyteller you should take care that actions arise from character and have consequences, that payoffs are set up, that events don't randomly occur just because things are getting boring.)

What's the difference between morals and ethics, anyway?

That’s what’s great about America: You can always start over.

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