The byword for the production was ba-na-li-ty says Payne spitting out every syllable

“The byword for the production was ba-na-li-ty,” says Payne, spitting out every syllable. When Broderick’s teacher sets off for a “romantic” tryst with his neighbour’s estranged wife, he may see himself as a dashing Italian gigolo, but what Payne shows us is a small man in shirt sleeves arranging cheap flowers in a miserable motel room, before indulging in a last-minute douche.For all his high-minded mundanity, Payne counts himself lucky to have the common touch. It’s nice to see the elements on film.”While movies such as Cruel Intentions and Ten Things I Hate About You are plundering the literary canon to lend their teen dramas a little added depth, Payne works the other way around, crafting literate satire from the simple drama of everyday suburban life. You see the actors’ hair being blown about, their coats billowing. Teachers played teachers and students played students.”I like to shoot in real locations,” says the director “I like shooting in Omaha because I’m from there I understand it It’s a place where buildings mean something to me LA is not mine Omaha is mine and I can show it Also, I get nice weather in Omaha, it’s always changing In Election you see wind. During the week, the film crew would be shooting in one room while class was going on next door.

When the bell rang for the next lesson, they’d have to wait while the whole school shuffled off for its next lesson. When I was preparing for Election, I’d watch other movies set in High Schools, and they’d always have these high ceilings and hardwood floors and venetian blinds with sun streaming through them. That’s garbage, you know?”Too many film-makers make films based on watching other films and just accept those conventions,” he continues. “In the moment of making a movie what I shoot has got to be based on what I see around me.” Payne ensured authenticity by filming Election at a working school. Everyone lives in these impossibly upper-middle class houses, with the open kitchen and the sport-utility vehicle car.

Whatever the film’s about, whether it’s starring Julia Roberts, Al Pacino or Susan Sarandon dying of cancer, it’s always so beautifully-lit, so rich and warm. Like Citizen Ruth, Election is shot in a determinedly bleak-looking Nebraska, full of ugly suburban houses, florescent school corridors, seedy motels and tacky shopping malls.”It’s a reaction to how sleek everything is in American cinema. Perhaps that’s why I still need irony to hide behind.”What Payne doesn’t hide behind is glossy production values. It’s rare that you have a genuinely interesting comedy director like Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch, or even Woody Allen Film-makers are somehow afraid of comedy I’m the opposite I’m afraid of straight drama Maybe I’m still adolescent.

“There aren’t many film-makers interested in doing satire these days and, of those, there aren’t many that do it well. The story of a pregnant glue-sniffer, Citizen Ruth poked fun at both pro-choicers and pro-lifers. Payne’s prickly debut may not have done well at the American box office (the film was never released here) but it proved that in the simple-minded, self-censoring world of Hollywood, here was one director who was not afraid to attack a few holy cows in the name of irony.”American film tends to be so unambiguous,” says Payne. I’m repulsed but I feel compassion.”The same wicked misanthropy fuelled Payne’s first feature.

But the director doesn’t flinch from gross visual gags as well. In one scene, Broderick’s conscientious but frustrated Teacher of the Year is shown beating off his insomnia with a spot of cheerleader porn.No character is wholly good or bad but most of them wind up looking rather pathetic “They’re all so sad,” agrees Payne “That’s how I feel about people in general I love them but I hate them. When McAllister tells the popular Chris “it’s time to give something back”, what he really means is “defeat that ruthless bitch who had an affair with my colleague and got him sacked”. I don’t see the similarity between them and Election at all,” he moans, `Why can’t people compare my movie to Zero de Conduite?”Election may not exactly match the anarchic brilliance of Jean Vigo’s 1933 classic, but it certainly has a subversive intelligence and originality missing from many of today’s teen-pleasers Payne’s speciality is hypocritical double-speak. “Just because my film happens to be set in a High School, I get asked about Varsity Blues and Cruel Intentions all the time I couldn’t care less about those movies. Payne has fashioned a refreshingly grown-up satire on power politics, about winning and losing, ambition and disillusionment.So he finds it somewhat vexing to have Election constantly “lumped in” with other, less sophisticated diversions.