[UPDATE: Well, it was clearly going to happen sooner or later, but youtube has pulled the video. Alas, alack, woe is you if you’re just seeing this post now.]
If you haven’t see Alexander Payne’s phenomenal dark comedy Election, starring Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon, you really should treat yourself and check it out. You should also stop reading this. Not only will this be of little to no interest to you, but it will also contain spoilers for the film I just recommended you see. So get out of here!
Alright. The rest of you may continue…
This is just fucking eerie. Literally last night I was having a discussion with two friends about a script they’d written. Giving notes, etc. The crux of the discussion became a lead character who was supposed to be sympathetic but just wasn’t that likable from my perspective. Normally the logical note would be to make the character more likable, but I suggested just embracing the fact that this seemingly sympathetic character is eventually revealed to be a bit of a douche. I used Election as my example of how this can work and still feel like a funny and satisfying ending. That ending is of course a bitter Broderick living in New York in disgrace, working a shitty job at a museum, and ultimately throwing a milkshake at a limo containing Reese Witherspoon in a fit of childish and petty rage. It’s a great ending. And not for a moment have I ever thought that it would have been nice if things had turned out happier for Broderick’s character.
Needless to say (yet I’m saying it anyway) it was quite bizarre this morning when I discovered that Slashfilm had a link to Election‘s original ending — original happy ending! The ending comes straight out of author Tom Perrotta’s novel, upon which the film is based. But apparently test audiences weren’t too keen on seeing everything turn out so schmaltzy, so Payne went back and shot the bleaker and more twisted epilogue that we all fell in love with (or at least I did). I seriously love shit like this. It is so easy to champion the “original intent” of writers and filmmakers; the notion that their initial ideas are always the best and that any tinkering on the part of anyone else is a negative. But anyone who has ever written a screenplay or worked on a movie know that – while that is certainly true in many cases – movies can also evolve for the better because of outside interference. And the death of many a filmmaker has been reaching that position where no one says “No” to you anymore, where your original intent makes it to audiences unfettered (Lucas, M. Night, anyone?). This is in no way a dig directed towards Payne. I just think it is kind of amazing that an ending so quintessentially unconventional that I was using it in an argument was in fact a test audience mandated reshoot. What a world.
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And yet, still I will not admit that test audiences are a positive thing. There are stories her and there about how they improved a film – like this one. But how many more movies have they affected for the worse? Maybe not big things always, but little modifications that can change the whole tone/drive of the movie. I’d rather take the original visions of a filmmaker/s, no matter how askew they may be, rather than some diluted version, changed by a group of people that have had the privilege to see the ‘original’ cut. See Bill Hicks RE Basic Instinct.
It’s been pulled from YouTube. What was the original ending?
Broderick is working at a car dealership. Witherspoon comes in. They go for a test drive, Broderick apologizes for everything he did and says he wishes he could take it all back. They stop in front of her house, which is in a gross crappy neighborhood and Broderick seems to feel bad about this. She goes into her house and returns with her yearbook and asks him to sign it. He is touched and starts signing. The End.
Based on Josh’s description, that would have been a terrible ending for the movie. I don’t think Payne needed the test screening to see that. I’m sure he knew how bad the ending was and was biting his nails hoping the test would agree with him so he could convince the suits.
He got to have his “happy ending” (in a way) with Sideways.
Not to mention that it gives Witherspoon’s character a “comeuppance” of sorts. Why should she get one and not him?
It’s true that Broderick is a douche. But the film really doesn’t have any “sympathetic” characters in the traditional sense of the word. You don’t actually ever feel like rooting for anyone. And that’s part of the point.
I actually preferred the ending from the book because it showed everyone had learned from the experience, especially on how important student politics was in the grand scheme of things (which is to say not very). As much as I liked the film, I found the ending I saw at the cinema too nasty to want to see the film again, no-one seemed to have learned anything, either.
This was working when I looked at it in the last half an hour:
http://ca.jezebel.com/5802300/see-the-original-unused-ending-to-election
Wow, that goes against the entire thrust of the movie/story. Was the book more of a reverie/nostalgia piece?
@Shan: “Learned”? It’s not an 80s Sitcom. They learned their limitations/extent of their influential boundaries – that’s an Adult lesson. And Student Politics are a hugely influential training ground for the people who become power players in later life.
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