Mum's Monday: Swing Vote (2008)

When something is a draw it may go into extra time. This film takes this to a whole new level. An American election in 2004. In New Mexico Ernest Bud Johnson (Played by Kevin Costner) has been fired from his job at an egg factory and for drinking and being drunk he is a laid back single father to his daughter Molly (Played by Madeline Carroll). Molly is very astute and registers her father to vote. We see in this film just how important voting can be. Whether this encourages people to vote remains open, but it does show a vote count.

However, Bud doesn’t show up to vote, Molly tries to do the right thing and goes to vote on his behalf, but a power cut in the polling booth wipes the vote and it doesn’t go through. In New Mexico both candidates are tied and this intern makes Bud’s vote the decider for the whole American election and determines who becomes overall president of the United States of America. Bud’s vote is worth 5 points and this would take either candidate over the 270-point line to win. It doesn’t take long for both candidates, the Republican president of the United States, Andrew Boone (played by Kelsey Grammer), and the leader of the Democrat Party, Donald Greenleaf (played by Dennis Hopper) to work out the one person who hasn’t voted and track him down. Whether this would be the case in the real world, as some people register and then find themselves in a situation where they can’t get to vote. So to say just one person has the deciding vote might be a bit of a stretch, but for the sake of the film this is a simple clever idea and works as a film.

We don’t get a sense of how important it is to choose the right person for a job, until we see this film, people from all over America are writing to Bud to get him to ask the candidates what their policies are – including health provision for lower paid. People feel strongly that when they vote it makes a considerable difference and they try to encourage Bud to feel the same.

The world is watching, and Bud gets swept up into a political world where the candidates are trying to bribe with racing car rides, ice cream, poker games and special dinners where Bud gets to perform with his old band. They are trying to persuade Bud to vote for them. During all this Bud slowly disconnects from his Daughter, Molly, who is overwhelmed and dislikes the sudden attention from the media, other strangers, all whilst trying to help her father grow and connect with her. After Molly struggles to process it any longer, she runs away, which kicks Bud in the right direction and he grows up and realises he has an important decision to make as well as reconnecting with Molly. Whilst this does have the right outcome, this does show that whilst Molly is an intelligent character, she is still a child, who has a bit more to cope with the most. Even if he didn’t want it in the first place he is willing to see it through, requesting one last debate, where he can say how he feels and ask questions on behalf of the people of America.

If Bud was more aware of the issues of the day and the policies of both candidates, then I believe he would have voted Republican, because in his place of work the company were in sourcing, meaning they were getting rid of US workers and bringing in Mexican people to do the same job. The Democrat candidate had a ‘Rainbow House’ policy to see more of this happen. It would be credible to think that Bud would have voted thinking about policies that were affecting people closer to home.

Over the ten-day process, the candidates try and persuade Bud to vote for them by changing their policies to fit Bud’s views, but due to Bud not being much aware of what he is doing, or saying, things start to get out of control. Donald Greenleaf loses himself in the process, and is aware that he is contradicting what the party stands for, whereas the President kept pushing forward, only coming to a sudden realisation that he, too, went against what he was fighting for – this included backtracking on building a dam because Bud enjoys fishing in the river the dam would affect – the night before the final debate.

He goes into the polling booth; he is going to vote… the film ends, leaving us to decide who he would have voted for.