A few weeks ago, we asked you to vote on what performances should be analyzed on the Almost There series. While Myrna Loy in Test Pilot won the poll of 1938 specific titles, John Cazale's supporting turn in Dog Day Afternoon was your pick from a selection of new to streaming titles. But your runner-up choices will also get their chance to shine. Cazale won, but Reese Witherspoon's iconic performance as Tracy Flick in Election was close behind…
Adapted from a novel by Tom Perrotta, Election is a black comedy about a high school student body government in Omaha, Nebraska. The movie's perspective, expressed in voice-over narration, oscillates between those of the presidential candidates and the civics teacher organizing the event, the loathsome Jim McAllister who holds a grudge against Tracy Flick. She's one of his students and presidential candidates, an overambitious young woman whose every word rubs Jim the wrong way. The teacher also blames her for the firing of Dave Novotny, a fellow pedagogue and Jim's best friend, who lost his job after a sexual relationship with Tracy was uncovered.
Looking back at Election, it's eerie how some of its acidic political observations make even more sense now than in the late 90s. In its perverse story of adult pettiness and power-grabbing youths, it delineates how virulent sexism affects the electoral act and the way people lean towards populism as a reaction. Not that the movie in itself is kind or empathetic towards Tracy. More than anything, Alexander Payne presents his female lead as an intrinsically bad person even though the actions taken against her by Jim are also portrayed negatively. Perhaps I'm projecting due to my dislike of the director, but there's important imprecision in the way Election negotiates its POV that ends up hurting whatever canny observations it's trying to make.
Despite Tracy and two other candidates getting chances to narrate their own story, it's Jim's voice that shapes the picture. This makes the incongruences of sympathy with which Payne portrays the man all the more crippling for the overall movie. All that being said, we're not here to review or litigate the value of Election but to analyze the performance of its famous leading lady. If anything, Reese Witherspoon's star turn as Tracy Flick brings with it a clear-headedness lacking in other aspects of the film. The script and form might not know what they want to say about this young woman, but we never doubt that Witherspoon knows Tracy Flick, in and out.
It's especially admirable how the actress keeps underlining the fact that Tracy's a kid, never letting us forget that this political maverick is, in essence, still growing up. We meet Tracy's methodic gestures before we ever see her face, a robotic preciseness to every movement. However, when the camera shows her entire body, Witherspoon's petite stature stands out. She's dangling her legs like a child, still too short for the school chair. It's a smart hint of restlessness, of too much energy contained within a body that's still developing, a nervous tick that counterbalances the stiff exactitude shown before. Whatever Jim might say, Tracy's a teenager, not some Washington big-head out for blood. Not yet, at least.
Throughout the entire film, Witherspoon keeps playing these two facets of Tracy Flick – the personification of abrasive female ambition, and a girl continuously victimized by the adults in her life. The actress's brilliant at weaving softness in between the caricature exaggeration. Notice how she acts in the flashbacks to the "affair" between Tracy and Dave, revealing rare vulnerability. Even as the character tries to avoid painting herself as a victim in the narration, Witherspoon's delicate silent reactions contrast cruelly with those assertions. She makes evident how much Tracy isn't in control of the situation.
The entire scene of the first sexual encounter between student and teacher is beyond uncomfortable, mostly due to the actress and how she highlights the perverse power dynamics. Her tentative walk towards the bedroom is heartbreaking in its self-conscious reticence as is the unsure manner in which she takes a sip of what is probably her first beer. Later on, we see other glimpses of this side of Tracy when she loses control and is made painfully aware of it.
Think of the panicked calculations going on in Witherspoon's frozen face after Tracy rips the posters in a tantrum. Another example's her imploding expression upon the moment of unlawful defeat. That last one is some of the best acting in the performer's entire career. Tracy's smile crumbles into ruins of disillusion and then, without ever cutting away, we get to witness the prompt erection of an apathetic façade to cover the rubble of her broken dreams.
None of that's to say that Witherspoon's Tracy is a wilting flower or some sort of damsel in distress.
The actress may humanize the caricature, but she doesn't sand off any sharp edges. There's an impetuous assertiveness to nearly every one of her line readings, a bullish intensity that can come off as confidence or overcompensation. Then, when she's angry, Witherspoon's incandescent, nostrils flaring and eyes shining like deadly lasers. Better yet, she makes all of this ugliness into comedy, managing to turn even the horrifying scene where she says "fuck me" straight at the camera into hilarity. Her glee's always too much, her fury burns and her despondence goes to such extremes that it becomes funny.
Witherspoon got a Golden Globe nomination for her efforts, as well as a Spirit Awards nod and NFSC win. Along with those honors, she was also recognized by several regional critics' groups, both with victories and nominations. In the end though, despite Election getting into the Adapted Screenplay Oscar race, Witherspoon wasn't nominated. Instead, AMPAS chose Annette Bening in American Beauty, Janet McTeer in Tumbleweeds, Julianne Moore in The End of the Affair, Hilary Swank in Boys Don't Cry, and Meryl Streep in Music of the Heart. Swank would end up winning for her turn as Brandon Teena, while Witherspoon had to wait until 2005 for her little golden man when she won for Walk the Line. Would you pick Flick above any of the actual 1999 Oscar nominees?
Election is available to stream on Amazon Prime, Roku, and HBO Max.