'Frontrunners' review

George, one of the four "Frontrunners" candidates (Credit: Oscilloscope)

Four students at the prestigious Stuyvesant High School in New York City compete for Student Union President. They endure a primary race that will narrow the field to two contenders, a televised debate, a crucial endorsement from the school newspaper and other events that mirror (loosely, very loosely) the U.S. Presidential election cycle.

The verdict: A theatrical release for this smartly packaged yet exceedingly simple doc seems a bit of a stretch. But filmmaker Caroline Suh’s low-key and straight-forward approach, spiked with a generous sense of humor, helps compensate for what’s missing. One of the four subjects, Hannah, has previous acting experience (she was in Todd Solondz's "Palindromes"), but it's another, George, who emerges as the movie's star with amusingly convoluted soundbites like “a synergical force of amiability which is far beyond the reaches of normal human comprehension.” If you’re looking for meaningful parallels with the current monumental election don’t bother, but it’s hard not to enjoy a movie where the primary pundit sports a Flava Flav t-shirt.