Film

An aw-shucks comedy about the de-dumbification of one American citizen, Swing Vote has just enough bite to make you wish it were guided by a surer hand. Where’s Jonathan Demme when you need him? Like Demme’s Melvin and Howard, the circumstances of Swing Vote are highly improbable: On the eve of a tightly contested presidential election, mangy New Mexico layoff and divorcé Bud (Costner) falls asleep drunk in his truck. His demoralized 12-year-old daughter (Carroll, a real find) sneaks into a voting booth and tries to cast his nonexistent political will. Machine error and modern-day districting being what they are, Bud is suddenly the determining vote.

Stern plays most of this for earnest Capra-corn, the problems of estranged kid and father coated in the thick goo of John Debney’s instabland score. Happily, the actors know better. The two candidates swoop down on Bud like hawks on a bunny; there’s Sturges-esque sizzle in watching Hopper’s Dem nominee and Grammer’s incumbent Prez bend over backward to please a moron. But it’s Costner who’s found his moment. He gives Bud his all—an oafish, fascinatingly confused turn—and a final speech that speaks volumes: “I am ashamed,” he says. Welcome to the first significant movie of Election 2008.