Tracy Enid Flick is a fictional character, originating in the 1998 novel Election by Tom Perrotta and portrayed by Reese Witherspoon in the 1999 film adaptation of the same title. Tracy is a smart, ambitious high school student, whose quest to win a school election is nearly derailed by her own ruthlessness and desperation.
Witherspoon's performance as Tracy was widely acclaimed by critics and garnered her multiple awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe nod. The character has since become an icon, as her driven, focused personality and unpopularity among her peers have led to comparisons with many real-life public figures, particularly female politicians such as Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin.[1]
Plot
In this satirical comedy, a hotly contested high school election becomes a metaphor for the current state of American politics. Jim McAllister (
Matthew Broderick) is a popular and well-respected instructor at George Washington Carver High School in Omaha, Nebraska, but lately he's been unhappy in both his personal and professional life, and his anxieties finally come to a head with the school's student elections. Tracy Flick (
Reese Witherspoon) is running for student body president, and she certainly seems like the sort of girl who would win a high school election -- she's pretty, popular and takes part in all the right extra-curricular activities. In fact, she seems so perfect she's running unopposed, which offends McAllister's sense of democracy (not to mention the fact he doesn't like her very much). So Jim intervenes and persuades Paul Metzler (
Chris Klein) to run against Tracy. Paul is not terribly bright and is entirely unqualified to be student president, but as a star of the school's football team (before a leg injury sidelined him), he's popular enough to at least give Tracy a run for her money. Just as the race begins to heat up, a spanner is truly thrown into the works when Paul's sister, Tammy (Jessica Campbell) announces she's also running for office. Publicly, Tammy's platform is that the student elections are ultimately pointless and if she's elected, she'll eliminate them altogether. Privately, Tammy is out for revenge against her brother; it seems Tammy is experimenting with her sexuality, and a recent fling with a bisexual classmate named Lisa (Frankie Ingrassia) ended when Lisa dumped her to start going out with Paul. Based on the novel by Tom Perrotta, Election was directed by
Alexander Payne, who won enthusiastic reviews for his debut feature,
Citizen Ruth; Payne also co-wrote the screenplay with Jim Taylor. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Review
A satire of electoral and scholastic politics, Election may have been set in high school but it was
not just another teen movie. Directed and co-scripted by
Alexander Payne with the same even-handed sharpness as his comically incendiary debut
Citizen Ruth (1996), Election's contest between Type-A student overachiever Tracy Flick and resentful civics teacher Jim McCallister delves into the behavioral minutiae ruling the ultimate popularity contest, presaging the deviousness and inertia that define national politics. Superbly cast as the anti-Ferris Bueller,
Matthew Broderick is deceptively nice as the schlub teacher who hates the student destined to power herself out of Omaha (even as he finds her attractive).
Reese Witherspoon's Tracy may be a monster, but Payne and co-writer Jim Taylor wisely reveal how the balance of power against the less privileged (and female) fuels her sociopathic drive. Jessica Campbell's astutely anarchic teen lesbian, however, provides the electoral
coup de grace. Hailed for its excellent performances, expert pacing, and humor both broad and subtle, Election received several critics' prizes and an Oscar nomination for Payne and Taylor's screenplay, but failed to convert some of the best reviews of the year into equally outstanding box office popularity. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
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