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Directed and written by Adam Saunders, Re-Election centers on Jimmy Bauer (Saunders), a fortysomething layabout who is stuck in the past. Tony Danza co-stars as Jimmy’s father, the owner of a floundering memorabilia store. This arrested development tale, which is surprisingly resonant, hits theaters today. Saunders and Danza talked to Deepest Dream about their collaboration and what makes Re-Election a unique story.
Jimmy Bauer (Adam Saunders)  believes that losing the class president election in 1995 set him on a downward spiral. After thirty years, he has a chance to go back to high school and run once again for class president. Bex Taylor-Klaus is Noa, a focused high school student who helps Jimmy on the election trail and Nathalie Kelly is Ama, Jimmy’s former classmate who now works at his former high school.
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“The father and son relationship also attracted me to (Re-Election),” said Tony Danza. “It’s a small movie but it has something to say. And I ended up really liking (Adam Saunders)!”
Both Re-Election and Saunders’ previous movie (Dotty & Soul) both are comedied with empathetic underpinnings, and the filmmaker sees that as an important element in his work.
“It’s the main thing I care about,” said Saunders. “I feel like empathy is at the root of everything that’s good. And the absence of it is the root of everything that’s bad. Not to oversimplify, but I kind of feel like that’s what it is when we talk about war (or) we talk about hate crimes or we talk about people doing horrible things to each other.”
“It’s just because they’re not walking in the other person’s shoes,” added Saunders. “Every one of us has both bad and good in us. We all have the ability to do bad and the ability to do good. And not one person on earth has been good their whole life or bad their whole life, you know?”
Full interview with Adam Saunders and Tony Danza:
