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''Election'' is a 1999 American comedy-drama film directed and written by Alexander Payne and adapted by him and Jim Taylor from Tom Perrotta's 1998 novel of the same title. The plot revolves around a high school election and satirizes both suburban high school life and politics. The film stars Matthew Broderick as Jim McAllister, a popular high school social studies teacher in suburban Omaha, Nebraska, and Reese Witherspoon as Tracy Flick, around the time of the school's student body election. When Tracy qualifies to run for class president, McAllister believes she does not deserve the title and tries his best to stop her from winning. The film is ranked #61 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies" and #9 on ''Entertainment Weeklys list of the "50 Best High School Movies", while Witherspoon's performance was ranked at #45 on the list of the "100 Greatest Film Performances of All Time" by ''Premiere''. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, a Golden Globe nomination for Witherspoon in the Best Actress category, and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film in 1999. ==Plot== Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) is a much-admired high school teacher in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska, who is actively involved in many after-school activities, one of which is overseeing the student government election process. Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) is an overachieving junior with an insufferable air of self-importance. Earlier in the year, another teacher, Jim's best friend Dave Novotny (Mark Harelik), had seduced Tracy and began carrying on an affair with her. When Tracy's mother learned of the affair and reported it to school authorities, Dave was fired from his job and divorced by his wife, Linda (Delaney Driscoll), while Tracy's reputation was unscathed. Against this backdrop, Tracy announces that she is running for student council president. When Tracy presents Mr. McAllister with her list of nominating signatures to qualify for the election ballot, she makes a remark about "working closely" together that he interprets as an indication she may try to seduce him. Annoyed by Tracy's presumptuousness and disturbed by the absence of any opposing candidates to challenge her in the election, Mr. McAllister decides to persuade junior Paul Metzler (Chris Klein), an affable and popular (yet dull-witted) football player who has been sidelined by a ski injury, to enter the race. Although Paul is initially ambivalent, Mr. McAllister ultimately prevails upon him to run, much to Tracy's consternation. Meanwhile, Paul's adopted younger sister Tammy (Jessica Campbell) is rejected by her romantic interest Lisa (Frankie Ingrassia), who dismisses their time together as "experimenting." Lisa then engages in a passionate relationship with Paul. In retaliation, Tammy decides to run for school president as well. During a school assembly to hear the candidate's speeches, after Tracy only draws polite applause and Paul is barely able to read his speech, Tammy announces that the office of school president is useless and declares that she will dissolve the student government if elected. The speech rallies the students to a standing ovation, but her subversive diatribe results in her being given a multi-day suspension from school. While working on another project after school, Tracy has a fit of rage and destroys all of Paul's campaign posters. She then drives to a local power plant to dispose of the shredded posters in a nearby dumpster. Unbeknownst to Tracy, her attempted cover-up is witnessed by Tammy. The next day, when Mr. McAllister confronts Tracy about the missing posters and lectures her that "all of our actions can carry serious consequences," Tracy adamantly claims innocence and angrily threatens to sue for defamation. At that moment, Tammy knocks on the door and tells Mr. MacAllister she knows who tore down the posters. Tracy is asked to wait outside the room while Tammy speaks to Mr. McAllister. Tracy experiences a moment of sheer panic when she peers in the window only to see Tammy revealing the shredded posters. What Tracy can't hear is that Tammy is falsely confessing to a skeptical Mr. McAllister that it is she, not Tracy, who perpetrated the poster sabotage. As a result, Tammy is disqualified from the election and expelled from school. Tracy is now off the hook. But this clearly does not sit well with Jim, who still suspects Tracy is the guilty party. The day before the election, Linda Novotny asks Jim to come over to help unclog her bathtub drain. After Jim completes the job, Linda unexpectedly initiates a sexual liaison with him and then suggests that he book a motel room for them to continue their dalliance later that day (a proposition Jim himself had half-jokingly made to Linda shortly after her breakup with Dave). However, Linda apparently has a change of heart and is nowhere to be found when Jim arrives at her house to pick her up for their tryst. Not knowing where Linda could be, Jim walks into her backyard where he has the misfortune of being stung by a bee on his right eyelid, causing a terribly painful and unsightly allergic reaction. He then drives back to the motel and desperately tries to reach Linda by phone, but to no avail. Jim eventually returns to his own house later that evening only to find Linda and his wife (Molly Hagan) huddled together crying in the living room. Realizing that Linda has disclosed the infidelity to his wife and that he is no longer welcome at home, Jim spends a miserable night sleeping in his car outside Linda's house. The next day — election day — Jim oversees the counting of the ballots, though by now his right eyelid is grotesquely swollen and almost completely shut as a result of the bee sting. Paul had voted for Tracy, feeling that it would be arrogant to vote for himself. But this turns out to be a costly decision. The ballots are meticulously counted by a duo of student auditors, who determine that Tracy has prevailed by a single vote. It is then up to Jim to perform a final ballot count to certify the outcome. When Jim happens to spot Tracy dancing excitedly in the hall, he deduces that she may have been tipped off about the vote count. Angered by Tracy's unseemly display of glee and her dirty-tricks campaign tactics, Jim decides to take matters into his own hands by surreptitiously disposing of two of Tracy's ballots and declaring Paul the official victor. This turnabout elicits incredulity and shock from the two student auditors, who are certain that their original vote count was accurate. Tracy is shocked and despondent upon hearing the unexpected news of her defeat. A day later, however, the school janitor (to whom Jim was rude earlier) discovers the two discarded ballots in the trash and presents them to the principal. When Jim is confronted with the evidence of his fraudulent intervention, he resigns. Divorced and publicly humiliated, Jim leaves Nebraska, choosing to fulfill his longtime dream of moving to New York City, where he becomes a tour guide at the American Museum of Natural History and begins a relationship with a new woman. Tracy gets accepted into Georgetown University, but finds the experience disappointing, especially because she still cannot fit in. A happy-go-lucky Paul gets into the University of Nebraska, while Tammy becomes romantically involved with a fellow student at the all-girls Catholic school where her parents have enrolled her following her misconduct at public school. As the film draws to a close, Jim is in Washington D.C. and sees Tracy enter a limousine with a congressman who she appears to work for as a member of his congressional staff. Enraged at the thought of Tracy, yet again, manipulating her way into political success, Jim hurls a soda at the limousine, then makes a quick getaway. The film ends with Jim posing questions to a group of schoolchildren who are visiting the museum, deliberately ignoring the raised hand of an overeager girl who reminds him of Tracy Flick. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Election (1999 film)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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