Early in Frontrunners, Caroline Suh's documentary portrait of a student body election at New York's Stuyvesant High School, George Zisiadis explains the "four-fold" benefits of campaigning on the bridge that leads into the school. Zisiadis is running for student body president; he takes school politics very seriously. He prattles off three benefits of their strategy (example: after climbing up the stairs to the bridge, students are too tired to refuse the campaign literature), then stops and stammers. He takes a beat, and then shrugs. "Come to think of it, it's three-fold."

It's the kind of scene you have to watch twice--once to watch George, and then again to watch his vice-presidential candidate, who first looks concerned and then like she can barely stifle her laughter. It's a moment that would feel too on-the-nose in a fiction film, but it's absolutely right--this is someone who wants to talk in the sound bites and jargon of politics but hasn't quite learned how. Yet.

Frontrunners begins with four pairs of candidates running in the school's primary election, which will narrow down to the two tickets that will vie for the presidency. Suh focuses on three of the four Presidential candidates (the fourth is acknowledged by all, including himself, as a long-shot at best; editor Jane Rizzo lands and easy but satisfying laugh by cutting from the intense campaigning of the other three teams to the "dark horse" ticket telling each other that they "really should put up some posters").

George is more than a little goofy and not yet comfortable in his own skin, but he's kind of charming anyway, desperately trying to connect with apathetic classmates and strategizing intensely with his team; his scenes have the feel of a junior War Room. Mike Zaytsev is the cooler, more popular man-about-the-halls--you want to like him, but he comes off like a bit of a dick (though his story comes to an appropriate conclusion). Candidate number three is Hannah Freiman, a cheerleader, aspiring actress, and overall overachiever who starts out looking like a real-life Tracy Flick but is reveals herself to be a genuinely likable and engaging presence who may be in a little over her head.

Suh and her cinematographers get some remarkably candid stuff, capturing the teens in unguarded moments and creating real connections, while simultaneously involving us in the nuts-and-bolts of this small but interesting electoral process (punditry and analysis by teachers and students, the courting of the school newspaper's endorsement, the ramifications of a debate "televised" to home rooms). Like Spellbound, another seemingly minor documentary feature about young people, we find ourselves genuinely involved in the outcome--there is real suspense here, because we actually like these people.

There's a little more going on under the surface of Frontrunners. Stuyvesant is the most competitive public high school in New York City, taking only a small percentage of the top-testing students in the city and outer boroughs. So these are the best and the brightest, all of them, and what Frontrunners also captures is the culture of a school of overachievers. It addresses this most overtly in a brief but enlightening scene in which a group of girls--only tangentially related to the primary narrative--lounge around in a hallway, talking about where they're going to college, and where their colleges rank on the U.S. News & World Reports survey. One is going to school number one, another to school number three. The chattiest one admits than she's going to Dickinson College (ranked #34), and then compares disclosing this information to "coming out." That's peer pressure we don't hear about as often.

In that scene, and throughout Frontrunners, these teens are real people, but more than that, they're complicated people. You can't put these teenagers in easy boxes; it's not like that scene in every bad 90s high school comedy where the cafeteria is divided up into the different cliques. In real life, high school is more intricate than that. Suh's film captures these young people's complexity admirably, and in doing so, it puts the one-dimensional teens of fiction films to shame.

Video:

The box for Frontrunners (which seems designed to remind you, as directly as possible, of Criterion's DVD designs for Wes Anderson's films) promises a "crisp new anamorphic transfer," but it doesn't quite deliver on that. Shot on digital video, the film looks reasonably good, but suffers from the expected saturation in skin tones and occasional compression. However, the transfer is fairly clean, with no noticeable dirt or grain. But there is one distressing issue: I spotted at least two fleeting instances of digital artifacts. Having worked with digital video, I recognized the digital blocks as looking somewhat like tape glitches, so they may have been present in the source material--but if they were, the filmmakers should not have used those shots. Either way, it's a little jarring and certainly pulls you out of the film, albeit fleetingly.

The 2.0 stereo mix is pretty good--dialogue is crisp and clear (even in less-than-ideal sound recording situations like echo-y hallways) and the indie-rock soundtrack keeps the mix lively. No complaints here; it's not exceptional, but it's about what we've come to expect from our lower-budget docs.

Bonus features are a little light for this release. First and foremost are several decent Deleted Scenes, which are organized according to the candidate they focus on (there are two scenes each for Hannah and Mike, while George gets six). All are worth a peek, though the film suffers from the exclusion of none (and it is probably best served by its final, breezy 80-minute running time).

More deleted scenes are included in the "Politics & Press" section, which includes a lengthy set of interesting deleted scenes at the school newspaper, followed by a brief extension of the interview with "Jon the Pundit" (this one is so short it was barely worth the trouble of inclusion--a disappointment, since his interviews are a highlight of the film). Also in this section we have, in its complete form, "The Debate"--the televised debate from beginning to end, including the Video Production class' LiveType opening credits. It's a nice addition, though not something you're likely to sit all the way through.

The special features are rounded out by a disappointing Audio Commentary by director Suh, producer Erika Frankel, the three main candidates, and coordinator of student activities Mr. Polazzo (who provides one of the few adult voices of the film). It's a full house of interesting people, but the track itself is awkward and dull, with long stretches of them watching the film, giggling or mumbling.

The video issues of the Frontrunners disc may distress videophiles, but most casual viewers will be too pulled in by this scrappy, entertaining doc to notice. It's a little lightweight, but what it does, it does exceptionally well. Highly Recommended.

Jason lives in New York. He holds an MA in Cultural Reporting and Criticism from NYU.