To Vote or Not to Be - Herzliya Cinematheque

Tuesday | 13 October | 20:30 | Herzliya Cinematheque

Director: Alexander Payne
Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Matthew Broderick, Lauren Nelson
(103 min, English; Hebrew subtitles)

Tracy Flick, an ambitious student at an American high school, intends to run for student council president. Standing in her way is her teacher, a tired and worn-out man who sees her as the embodiment of all his nightmares—and perhaps also of everything missing from his own life. When the young politician, who takes no prisoners, encounters a man desperately trying to salvage his life from a crisis, it is easy to guess that things will not end well.

1999 is considered one of the peak years of American cinema, with films such as The Matrix and Fight Club, which examined the manipulative power of images and those who produce them. Election is more modest in scope, but no less brilliantly written and subversive. More than a quarter of a century after it was made, at a time when the word “election” is once again beginning to take over our lives, Alexander Payne’s caustic comedy seems like an obvious choice.