Man of the Year

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A 2006 comedy drama starring Robin Williams, Christopher Walken, and Laura Linney.

Tom Dobbs is the host of a successful political talk show. Always happy to take shots at that system he sees as broken, he has no shortage of material with the presidential election coming up. Then during his warm up act one day, an audience member suggests he should run for president. He laughs it off at first, but after a huge wave of support, he does put his name on the ballot, of course expecting not to win. The shocker? He does. Meanwhile, Eleanor Green, an employee of Delacroy, the people who make the voting machines, suspects the whole election could have been won on a system glitch.

Tropes used in Man of the Year include:

• As Themselves: James Carville, Chris Matthews, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
• Graceful Loser: Aware that he won because of the glitch, Tom uses an appearance on Saturday Night Live to graciously step down from the office of President Elect.
• Genre Roulette: Something the marketing didn't show. Arguably done well, though the comedy portions were received the best critically.
• How We Got Here: The entire film is told from the memory of wheelchair bound Jack Menkin.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The film was advertised as pretty much a straight comedy, but is very obviously a comedy-drama, even veering into political thriller territory at times.