Streaming: the best films about elections | Film

Lately, you just can’t move for high-profile elections. The UK’s big decision day is less than three weeks away; France shouted one last week after the EU elections; my home country of South Africa had particularly important last month; Mexico just picked theirs the first female president; and the US presidential battle looms ominously in the fall. This can be easier to appreciate when you’re not emotionally invested in the outcome, but elections are irresistibly dramatic events, with all their built-in narratives of anticipation and upset, triumph and fall—so it’s no surprise that filmmakers often grab for them.

Hollywood, in particular, is fixated on the multi-layered maze of America’s electoral systems, from the trivial to the highest. Alexander Payne’s gleefully sour teen comedy Elections may seem like a low-key representation of a student council vote in a suburban high school, but it cleverly distills all the mannerisms, mores and strategies of adult US politics into the clash between a cold-blooded overachiever and a made-up fool. (Another school election comedy, Napoleon Dynamiteless insightful perhaps, but no less funny.)

Moving into slightly more mature territory, the seven-minute short from 1932 Betty Boop for President (Internet Archive) saw the famous cartoon bombshell successfully run for president on a fairly simple centrist manifesto promising effective street cleaning and massive rain cover, though there was a hint of an anti-prohibition spirit in her victory. Still, she’s up for more than Charlize Theron’s presidential candidate Long shot. An enjoyable romantic comedy that claims some progressive cred by upending traditional gender dynamics with its love story between Theron’s alpha female and Seth Rogen’s low-key sidekick, it’s also careful not to say which party she represents or exactly what her politics are.

This ambiguity is common in Hollywood political films, as much as they dislike alienating half the polarized population—in 1962, John Frankenheimer’s brilliant The Manchurian candidate was a notable exception, with the feverish build-up of brainwashing and gaslighting in the campaign of the Republican vice presidential nominee clearly modeled on Joseph McCarthy. (Jonathan Demme’s 2004 remake was a bit more cautious in this regard.) Jeremy Larner was a speechwriter for a different McCarthy, five-time presidential candidate Eugene; he won an Oscar for later writing the sharp 1972 satire The candidate, starring Robert Redford as a hopeless Democrat running in a seemingly unwinnable California senatorial race, slowly turning the tide while changing his idealistic leftist message. He bristles with authority and first-hand anger.

In the era of Clinton, Barry Levinson and David Mamet’s snappy satire Waving the dog got a boost from the unusual timing of its release a month before the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke — a perfect match for a movie about media professionals fabricating an overseas war to distract attention from a presidential sex scandal weeks before the election. During the actual Clinton-inspired comedy Primary colors (BBC iPlayer) came out the following year, slightly fictionalizing his presidential campaign, it didn’t seem quite as sharp – although Elaine May’s script still had plenty of wit.

British elections, on the other hand, have rarely tempted filmmakers – too stark and official perhaps. Back in 1959, Sidney Gilliatt’s romantic comedy from the pen Left, right and centre built a rare piece of fiction around a Tory-Labour contest, although it is currently only available on DVD. The 2021 horror movie Election night, organized around a spectator party for an election situated rather fantastically between radical left and far right parties, has novelty on its side, if not much else. As far as British election biopics go, it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to revisit the negotiations between David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown after the 2010 vote, but if you do, Coalition (Amazon) has your back.

Chile gave us one of the great dramas of the campaign No, the gripping, darkly funny and ultimately riveting account of the political machinations behind the country’s 1988 referendum that ended the rule of Augusto Pinochet. Staying in South America, Petra Costa’s urgent passionate documentary On the edge of democracy (Netflix) leaves one less buoyed with its account of the circumstances that led to Jair Bolsonaro’s 2018 presidential victory.

The crudeness of African electoral politics, meanwhile, is superbly covered in two recent papers: Sam Soko Softabout an idealistic Kenyan journalist-turned-activist-turned-candidate and last year’s Oscar nominee Bobby Wine: The People’s President, in which a Ugandan pop star struggles with power. And finally, the excellent, little-seen Indonesian film Autobiography (BFI Player) traces the toxic influence relationship between a corrupt, militaristic mayoral candidate and his young sidekick – a campaign film with all the atmospheric tension and anxiety that’s harder to enjoy in a real-life context.

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You don’t need to be familiar with the extensive history and erudition of the Japanese superhero Ultraman to enjoy this hilarious, family-friendly animation in which a baseball star reluctantly takes up the mantle of the eponymous character while raising a huge but adorable baby kaiju monster. Thrills, spills, and “awwwwwws” follow in equal measure.

Dolls for riding
(Universal)
Hopefully, the Coen brothers’ current period of solo work is temporary. of Joel Macbeth was a beautiful enough experiment, but this frenetic road movie farce from Eaton – written with his wife Tricia Cook – is awkward and unfunny, lifted only slightly by Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan’s performance as lesbian friends on the run from mobsters.

Made in England: The films of Powell and Pressburger
(Altitude)
Director David Hinton’s first-hand documentary celebrating the work of Britain’s great cinema dreamers – the men behind them The red shoes, A matter of life and death and so on – is made special by Martin Scorsese’s personal and palpably enthusiastic narration throughout.