The Mid-West. Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) is a Tipper Gore in waiting. She's good at everything because she works at it and her sights are now set on office: president of the student government for Washington Carver High. Except that the pushy, single-minded Tracy is not particularly popular. Especially with Civics teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick). Not before - and especially not after - her brief fling with fellow teacher Dave Novotny.

So now Jim McAllister scents revenge. Tracy Flick is running unopposed, but what if he, Jim McAllister, finds her some opposition? Real opposition. Like amiable but feeble-minded football stud Paul Metzler (Chris Klein). The sanctimonious Tracy is not sanguine: 'It's like my mom said: the weak are always trying to sabotage the strong.'

Payne's screenplay, from Tom Perrota's novel, attempts nothing so much as an autopsy of American political culture in microcosm. It's all there, from bribery (gum and cup cakes), to smears and scandals. And even a third party candidate when Paul's sapphic sister Tammy (Jessica Campbell) - she's not a lesbian, she protests, it's just that she only fancies women - enters the race on a 'who cares?' ticket. The battlelines are drawn between pious homilies from the ruthlessly ambitious Tracy, Paul's oafish geniality (so much so that he thinks it unfair even to vote your yourself), and Tammy's grungy anarchism.

Performances are crisp throughout, both from the debuting Campbell and Klein, and the veteran Broderick. He's never really shaken off the mantle of super-nerd Ferris Bueller - until now, noticeably playing on the other side of the educational barricade. The once idealistic McAllister has been left twisting in wind by life, caught between a broody wife, his lust for the now single Linda Novotny and his bearly disguised loathing for Ms. Flick. He keeps a secret porno stash in the basement and is not above rigging the vote. Jim McAllister will have his day. Witherspoon's triumph is allow gaps in Tracy's armour, to offer us sympathetic glimpses before reverting to type.

The film's comedy is first-rate (Novotny's idea of seduction music is 'Three Times A Lady'), and it's willingness to subvert the conventions of the high school movie - the prom, the nerd-jock cliques, the all-conquering rebel (Ferris Bueller) - is refreshing. It does loose something towards the end when Payne is either unable or unwilling to bring things to a close (it's about a quarter-hour too long) but for the most part this is one of the sourest, least comforting slants on the democratic system you will ever witness.