(FORTUNE Magazine) – In the past few years, movies have been eerily prophetic. First there was Wag the Dog, Barry Levinson's film about a President who fabricates a foreign crisis to distract attention from a personal scandal. Now we're living Election, Tom Perrotta's novel that was made into a film in 1999. Know-it-all Tracy Flick is about to win her high school presidential election by one vote until her social studies teacher, frustrated by her smugness, steals two ballots. Tracy loses the election to dim varsity football star Paul Warren. (The Ralph Nader spoiler role is played by Paul's younger sister.)

Sound familiar? Perrotta insists he's not a soothsayer; he wrote his book as a response to the 1992 presidential election. "I was trying to get at democracy at its messiest," he says. "But this year's election is closer to the book than the election I based it on."

Prophecy comes naturally to the movie's director, Alexander Payne. "You could say the Elian Gonzalez case was like my movie Citizen Ruth." (It sort of is: A young woman unwittingly becomes a poster child for a cause celebre.) Note to Florida officials: A trip or two to the video store could have saved you a whole lot of trouble this year.

--Noshua Watson