Bud (Kevin Costner) and his daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll) become the center of national attention when Bud’s choice for president will decide the election in Swing Vote.

The movie productions / ben glass

With its “and a little child shall lead them” theme revolving around a father whose single vote can decide the U.S. presidency, Swing Vote is certainly the most timely family-oriented comedy to come along in this presidential election year. And probably the only one.

Holding up a funhouse mirror to current events, the script by Jason Richman and director Joshua Michael Stern gives an entertaining, often funny, often jaundiced view of the presidential election. It’s a modern-day Lord of the Rings saga in which the two polar-opposite candidates will sacrifice anything, even reversing their own earlier set-in-stone platforms, to win the heart and mind of Bud Johnson, the lone voter who holds their futures in his hand. At least they try until they run into the cynical gaze of his tough-as-nails daughter Molly, who harbors a dreadful secret about the legitimacy of her father’s vote and, consequently, their quest.

If you can get over the big stretch of believing that a national election can boil down to a single vote (although the 2000 presidential election hinged on 500 votes in one Florida district) , you’ll find an intelligent script that poses tough questions about the importance of everyone’s vote, but does it in a clever, entertaining way.

Bud (played with ragged, rascally charm by Kevin Costner) is about the last person that even Bud would imagine could hold the key to an election. He hasn’t voted in years; isn’t even registered. His wife abandoned Bud and Molly years before in hopes of getting her singing career going in Albuquerque, at least according to Bud. Bud and Molly, now 12, live in a mobile home on the edge of a tiny town where Molly (Madeline Carroll) has become the parent in the situation, trying to iron out the daily wrinkles in Bud’s not-so-well-ordered life.

Those wrinkles hit a road block on Election Day when the lackadaisical, irresponsible Bud is fired from his job at an egg-packing plant after too many mess ups. It’s the day Molly, all fired up from her social studies class about the importance of voting, insists that Bud meet her at the polling station where she’ll be observing the activity, and even cast his own vote, for she has registered him. “It’s your civic responsibility,” Molly tells him with a schoolmarm’s insistence.

But Bud, layabout that he is, never makes it to the polling place, much to Molly’s disappointment. And so, in a move that will have grave consequences for both Bud and the nation as a whole, Molly takes matters into her own hands. Yet fate makes Molly’s best of intentions go awry.

Before long Bud’s trailer has become Ground Zero for the world’s TV crews who camp outside Bud’s trailer; Air Force One, carrying the incumbent president, is landing almost in his backyard; the presidential challenger is tossing a big party for Bud even as he pirouettes a 180-degree switcheroo of his principles in hopes that Bud will put a check mark next to his name in the polling booth.

For a man who doesn’t care one whit about politics, Bud is both miffed at the attention and appalled by the celebrity status that has fallen on his shoulders overnight. Molly, mortified that someone will discover her little secret, takes comfort in Kate Madison (Paula Patton), a local television reporter who befriends the little girl. Kate is sympathetic, yet can’t hide the fact that she sees Bud’s story as a ticket out of this hamlet for herself and into the glare of big-time network exposure.

Swing Vote casts a not very flattering light on presidential politics, the media and the people who find themselves caught in the middle of it all. Costner, who looks like a rumpled unmade bed for most of the picture, is perfect as the man who doesn’t care but who suddenly must care, giving the film’s offbeat comic angles just the right light touch. He welcomes the arrival of NASCAR star Richard Petty on his doorstep in hopes of persuading Bud to meet and eventually vote for the incumbent Republican president; he’s impressed by the televised entreaty of Willie Nelson, who invites Bud to a big party put on by the Democratic opponent.

Kelsey Grammer is on target as the nervous president. He recalls the two-faced Mayor of The Nightmare Before Christmas: kindly and genteel one moment, a cool cutthroat the next. At one point he tries to put world issues in terms Bud might better understand by comparing nuclear war to a football game. Stanley Tucci amuses as his coldly determined campaign manager.

They are balanced by Dennis Hopper as Donald Greenleaf, the man vying for the presidency, and the usually over-the-top Nathan Lane is his campaign manager. They don’t top the cool cunning of Grammer’s president, yet Hopper has one of the film’s best lines when he wails that “I don’t even recognize myself anymore,” as his principles — and those of the incumbent — are molded to fit what they think Bud will like.

Bud thinks gay marriage is okay? The president, who has been burnishing his conservative image, suddenly embraces homosexuals. Bud thinks cutting down trees is a bad thing? The president upends his tree-cutting program to embrace conservation.

Observing all this with a cynical eye is Molly, who cuts through the nonsense with a cool stare all her own. Although she has appeared in minor roles in other films and in TV commercials, Carroll makes a remarkable star turn in Swing Vote where she sometimes seems to be carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. She’s assured and determined when seeing through the false promises of politicians. But in a scene where tears come as she talks to her class about Bud’s sterling principles, something she knows is all a lie, she very effectively shows her conflicted feelings.

Costner is just as affecting in an emotional speech he delivers on national TV near the end of the film, actually a confessional moment in which he lays out all the frustrations and needs of many voters in an election. Suddenly all Bud’s own foolishness melts away and he speaks for many of us. It’s a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment as it lifts Swing Vote out of clever entertainment into something that you can chew on.

****Swing Vote

Starring: Kevin Costner, Madeline Carroll, Paula Patton, Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci, Dennis Hopper, Nathan Lane.

Rated: PG-13, contains adult themes.

mjanuson@projo.com