Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
George Zisiadis | ... | Self | |
Hannah Freiman | ... | Self | |
Michael Zaytsev | ... | Self | |
Matt Polazzo | ... | Self | |
Jon Edelman | ... | Self | |
Alex Leonard | ... | Self | |
Vanessa Charubhumi | ... | Self | |
Lauren Gonzales | ... | Self | |
Marta Bralic | ... | Self | |
Zakia Babb | ... | Self | |
Wyndam Makowsky | ... | Self | |
Andrew Saviano | ... | Self | |
Sharel Itzkovich | ... | Self | |
Joe Kopyt | ... | Self (as Joseph Kopyt) | |
Michael Lipkin | ... | Self |
It's hard to run for office - even in high school. And the campaign for student body president at Stuyvesant, perhaps the most prestigious public high school in the country, is almost as sophisticated as any presidential election. Candidates must choose running mates, navigate primaries, write political platforms, perform in televised debates, shake as many hands as possible, and win newspaper endorsements. But unlike presidential candidates, they also have to do their homework, take their SATs and write their college applications. FRONTRUNNERS follows the recent elections at the country's most competitive high school, exploring how politics works at a nascent level. As the race unfolds, it takes on undertones familiar to anyone who has watched a national election -- revealing that teenagers have an implicit understanding of how strategy, race, gender, personality, platforms, charisma, and hairstyle figure into a winning campaign. Written by Anonymous
Frontrunners is a delightful film about the student elections at Stuyvesant High School. Stuyvesant is obviously not the typical high school, but the student elections are definitely similar to most student elections at any other high school in the United States. It makes for an interesting insight into how student elections work and how similar they are to the presidential elections.
I started watching Frontrunners right after I watched a movie called "Palindromes" which just so happens to feature Hannah Freiman as one of the main actors. I didn't realize that she would be in both films, and it caught me by surprise. However, after watching Palindromes, it was neat seeing Hannah as a real person rather than her character in Palindromes. Her character is a really awkward 13-year-old that is trying to get pregnant, so it was interesting to see that Hannah was actually a popular cheerleader in real life.
I thought the whole documentary was entertaining and very funny. The student candidates pretty much made the film. If the students were boring and mundane, the film would have been much of the same. However, I suppose students that choose to run in the elections are typically interesting characters. I found George to be extremely entertaining, and it didn't even seem as though he was acting that way because he was being filmed. It seemed like he acts in that manner every day.
The documenting of the student elections seemed organic; it didn't seem contrived as if there was a camera following the students around. I'm sure that there was not a camera in the students' faces the whole time during the election, but obviously, there was a camera there for all the parts that we saw.
Overall, I thought the film was great!