From Nostalgia to Now: Election Connection

When Election came out in 1999, I wanted to see it.  A twisty tale about the evils of high school politics starring Reese Witherspoon?  Yes, please.  After all, I was a high school senior myself and could relate.  Not because I ever ran for office or wanted to, but because the social maze of schooldays were a struggle.  Then again, maybe that's why I ended up not seeing it.

Fast forward to 2020 and the pandemic, which meant that I was catching up on old movies.  One night I was scrolling through my options when Election came up.  Twenty-two years later, and it was finally time.  It was so good!  Witherspoon made the perfect Tracy Flick, an overbearing overachiever intent on becoming student government president no matter what.  And Chris Klein was her ideal foil as Paul, the affable, big-man-on-campus puppet primed to defeat her.  I enjoyed it so much that I ordered the book, by Tom Perrotta, whom I'd heard of but never read.  Not surprisingly, it was even better than the movie, a rich character study of suburbia told baldly from multiple points of view.  So last fall when I heard that there was a sequel to Election called Tracy Flick Can't Win, I was pumped.       

In this installment, Perrotta introduces us to a forty-something version of the high school anti-hero (cue the Taylor Swift).  Tracy's not a senator or even a lawyer like she planned, but a single mom and assistant principal.  For all her scheming and dreaming, she's right back where she started, a big fish in a small pond campaigning to be, not president, but principal.  Still, Perrotta gives us a more vulnerable and nuanced look at her, especially as she comes to terms with sleeping with her English teacher.  Indeed, the novel is full of wronged women, their stories woven like faded rainbows in Perrotta's crazy quilt of suburban satire.  His skill in describing women is impressive, especially when writing about them dealing with -- and falling for -- men who are their superiors.  As they blame themselves for what happened to them, it's all too clear how the patriarchy sets up women to fail.  Yet Perrotta reminds us that, in many ways, it sets up men to fail too.  No character is all good or bad, and that's what makes Perrotta's storytelling so realistic.  Regardless of the obstacles these troubled souls face, they do the best with what they've got.      

And that's always worth voting for.

Movie Moment: American Reunion

If you graduated high school in or around 1999, then chances are that you have a kind of connection to the American Pie movies.  Having belonged to the class of 2000, I was particularly excited to see the fourth and presumably final installment, American Reunion. 

Thirteen years have passed since Jim (Jason Biggs), Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas), Oz (Chris Klein), and Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) made their epic pact to each bed a babe on prom night.  Despite adulthood having descended in the form of wives, kids, and careers, the gang's all here (even Oz, Heather (Mena Suvari), and Vicky (Tara Reid), who were conspicuously absent from the conga line in American Wedding).  Not surprisingly, life hasn't turned out the way any of them expected.  Jim and Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) are adjusting to life with a baby, Kevin is an architect-slash-stay-at-home-husband, Finch has been leading a life of exotic but vague adventure, Oz is a sports commentator with a spot on a "Dancing with the Stars" type show (hosted by Neil Patrick Harris!), and Stifler emerges from his mother's (Jennifer Coolidge) basement to crash the party yet again, apparently buckling beneath the demands of his secretarial gig.

The usual gross-out antics and naked ladies rim the edges of what amounts to be an oddly touching story.  Because beyond all the madness is a quiet reminder that everyone gets older and that life goes on.  Nowhere is this message more apparent than when we learn that Jim's mom died three years ago.  Jim takes over the role of caretaker as he gently nudges his dad (Eugene Levy) to dip his toe into the dating pool, an experiment that produces hilarious results.  Speaking of second chances, Oz becomes jealous of Heather's cardiologist boyfriend, Dr. Ron (Jay Harrington, the very same "Dr. Ron" from that guest spot on "Desperate Housewives" many moons ago), right around the same time that his own girlfriend ("30 Rock's" Katrina Bowden) is beginning to grate on his nerves.  But at the core of the crazy is Jim's moral dilemma presented in the form of an all-grown-up and smitten girl he used to (and this is kind of weird) babysit.   

Unlike the Hangover movies, American Reunion serves up a sex comedy with a conscious.  Sure, it makes you cringe in places, but it's the cringing that balances the sap, ultimately making the sap that much sweeter.