Published: January 19, 2009 03:27 pm      

Swing Vote teaches life lessons

Swing Vote — recently released on DVD — puts Kevin Costner’s character Ernest “Bud” Johnson in the unlikely position of deciding the outcome of a presidential election.

Costner is right on as a lazy, beer-drinking, slacker raising his brilliant, matured-beyond-her-years daughter Molly in a 1970s-era trailer house in Texico, NM.

Things aren’t going right for Bud and we can tell they haven’t for a long time.

Casting a vote in the election is the last thing on Bud’s mind.

But Molly, who’s sick of being let down by her dad, decides to make him vote.

That act sets off a series of events which make Bud realize he was once a normal guy with some real aspirations.

Costner is appropriately disheveled in this story about a basically decent man who just can’t get his life together.

Conversations between father and daughter are funny at times.

Molly reads an insightful report about the danger of complacency among Americans and the importance of voting to which Bud replies that he doesn’t want to vote because his name will end up an a jury duty list. Then he tells Molly she should “stay away from” her teacher because she’s giving Molly ideas about good citizenship. He takes her fishing on a school day, and she asks him, “Can I go to school now?”

“Just let me have one more cast,” Costner replies.

It doesn’t matter that Bud’s dilemma would never happen in the real world.

The focus of the film is what Bud does with the days before the election.

He has a week to consider how he will vote, and that’s not easy for a man who doesn’t even know who the candidates are.

Suddenly the lackluster product inspector who got fired for drinking on the job and stumbling into a pallet full of eggs — is courted by slimy politicians including Kelsey Grammer as the president and Dennis Hopper as challenger Donald Greenleaf.

Grammer assumes the stodgy, superior demeanor we are accustomed to in his characters.

Hopper is less a force as the hapless poser Greenleaf.

Bud becomes an instant celebrity in the way ordinary citizens sometimes do— remember Joe the plumber?

He plays poker with the president and gets a trailer full of gift baskets. He’s having a good time basking in the unaccustomed attention until he hears an interview with his friends who refer to him as a “dumb **s.”

Suddenly he realizes how the world sees him and the truth hurts. A lot.

Finally, he has an epiphany when he begins to see how much his gleefully apathetic existence grieves his daughter.

Madelline Carroll turns in an amazing performance as Bud’s dejected pre-teen daughter charged with the job of taking care of her father.

In one scene, she tearfully explains why her famous father couldn’t make it to her school for father-daughter day — something he promised to do and then promptly forgot about.

Molly’s pain is so evident you can feel it.

And she’s a sad sight waiting for her father outside a bingo hall, prepping Bud for his first meeting with politicos and standing at her errant mother’s doorstep clutching a bag of clothes and a dog-eared photo.

The movie is less a political comedy than a study in the way adult’s stupid decisions can hurt their children.

I really liked this movie.

I liked how Bud loved his daughter enough to change for her sake.

I liked how Molly loved him, forgave him and never gave up on him.

Swing Vote drove a poignant truth deep into my heart: Sometimes, our kids know more than we do.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.