Elephant (2003)

70% of critics liked it
(142 reviews)
78% of users liked it
(56,602 ratings)

Director Gus Van Sant returned to the low-key style of his early independent efforts with this semi-improvised exploration of how violence makes its way into a typical American high school. Eric (Eric Deulen) and Alex (Alex Frost) are two close friends who are students in a well-to-do suburb of… More Director Gus Van Sant returned to the low-key style of his early independent efforts with this semi-improvised exploration of how violence makes its way into a typical American high school. Eric (Eric Deulen) and Alex (Alex Frost) are two close friends who are students in a well-to-do suburb of Portland, OR. Eric and Alex are at once ordinary and misfits; while they seem to be confined to the edges of the clique-oriented social strata of high school, little about their behavior draws attention to itself. Or at least not during a typical school day; on their own time, the two boys are fascinated by Nazi iconography, enjoy violent video games, tentatively explore homoerotic desires, and coolly begin to make plans for an armed ambush of the school, drawing up working diagrams of the lunch room during study hall and buying rifles over the Internet. Drawing an expected degree of controversy, Elephant had its world premiere when it was screened in competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, where it won both Best Director for Van Sant and the Golden Palm award. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 21 min.
Directed By: Gus Van Sant
Written By: Gus Van Sant
Genres: Drama

In Theaters: Nov 7, 2003 Limited
On DVD: May 4, 2004
Studio: Fine Line Features

Critic Reviews

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic
A living, breathing work that's distinctively different from the regular hyper-reality of Hollywood films.
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel
Van Sant, whose films often connect, sensitively, with the thinking of young people, has made a film that says things are wrong with kids today. We're missing the obvious.
Joe Baltake, Sacramento Bee
Too specialized an item to be flat-out declared the best film of the year, but from where I sit, it is inarguably the finest cinematic achievement of 2003 so far.
Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer
Elephant is the film equivalent of Maya Lin's Vietnam monument, that collective gravestone to the fallen, in the way it employs abstract means to quantify the loss of life and elicit a profound sense of grief.
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
An 86-minute cosmic provocation to rethink how we talk about the unspeakable, the scapegoats we look for, the effigies we burn.
Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle
We ask: Who are these people? Which ones are troubled enough to bring guns to school? What are their lives like? What made them this way?
Louis Proyect, rec.arts.movies.reviews
A failure to communicate
Bill Clark, FromTheBalcony
A film without any easy answers, or answers at all.
Nick Schager, Lessons of Darkness
A morally dubious waiting game.
Douglas Pratt, Movie City News
It is the very fact that Van Sant can extract such beauty from the mundane that, on a conscious or subconscious level, makes the movie itself a metaphor for the human soul.
Jay Antani, Los Angeles Alternative
Elephant is one of this year's boldest movies....But, in refusing to assert a point of view about what troubles American youth, Van Sant...flees the scene of the crime
Joe Utichi, FilmFocus
This is powerful and compulsive viewing and should certainly not be missed.

Read all 12 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Cameron S

At the time of writing this review it's been a little over twenty-four (24) hours since I watched 'Elephant', a Columbine inspired film which had me so mesmerised I feel as if it is still with me at this very moment. I don't really know how to describe it, nothing… More
At the time of writing this review it's been a little over twenty-four (24) hours since I watched 'Elephant', a Columbine inspired film which had me so mesmerised I feel as if it is still with me at this very moment. I don't really know how to describe it, nothing happens, yet everything happens, nothing is stated but everything is there. The film itself moves at a slow pace, although only around 78 minutes Gus Can Sant (the director) really takes his time to establish a conventional high school day, showing it from a multitude of perspectives, each of which comes together as the story comes to it's shocking, bloody climax. For me the film was outstanding, it really encaptured highschool life and I was completely engaged by the whole thing. The foreshadowing within the film is one of the main narrative devices but is used in such a way that you never truely experience tension, you know exactly what's going to happen but by the point it happens you are just there as it happens, there is no hope, there is no good to be done, there is no saving anyone, there is only the moment, and as a viewer you are unable to escape, unable to look away, and that's an unbelievable feeling.
Zach B

This is one of those films I found not by looking at 'great art films', but by looking up two things that interest me: films that won the Golden Palm d'Or for best film, and the Columbine massacre. While the first one is understandable towards film buffs and geeks… More
This is one of those films I found not by looking at 'great art films', but by looking up two things that interest me: films that won the Golden Palm d'Or for best film, and the Columbine massacre. While the first one is understandable towards film buffs and geeks alike, the latter interest will puzzle some. Sense my days of middle school when I was first exposed to the documentary 'Bowling For Columbine', something about the incident involving two mentally disturbed teens that had it with being tormented, tortured, and humiliated by their peers and teachers killing and wounding masses have intrigued me to the point that I studied the entire incident to an excessive amount. One thing I was looking up were films that deal with school shootings. What I came to was this film by Gus Van Sant that won the Palm d'or; the same award won by Pulp Fiction and, as of recent, Tree Of Life. The first time I saw this film, I was in awe with how Van Sant directed this film, how he uses the Steadicam (something Stanley Kubrick perfected with his films) to create the tension and isolation of each character. This film is one that has no real plot, mostly improvised dialogue, and all in the sake of making you feel like you are in high school. This works because it does make you feel like you are alone, walking down deserted hallways, and from the reactions of many who saw this film, I am not alone. Yeah, at times this does get irritating to the point you want to shoot something. But if you relax and let this film take place, what you get is one of the most surreal, tension-building films that is beyond low key. As I have stated above, most of this film is improvised and this is improvising at it's finest. This film was directed in a way that it mirrors Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon in the sense that this film is shown through the eyes of numerous, unrelated people as we see how or why this violence is even happening. The end result is simple: no one cared no had any idea of the two main killers. They were either hated on, despised, or completely ignored by society in a way that would drive anyone mad. And these young actors, many them having this be their first film they have worked on, do a wonderful job in terms of making this film seem real. With the way this film is shot and how all the dialogue was made on the spot, it does create a raw, authentic, documentary feel that makes this movie even more tragic to watch. To sum up this film in terms of it's tension this film nails it. From the start you know that a complete massacre will happen at any time, but with about seventy minutes of continuous dialogue, silence, and character building, this movie is one for the patient, intelligent, and clear minded watcher. To watch this film would require you to think openly and be ready to absorb an average day inwhich all hell breaks wide open.
paul o

Its an art house film based on Columbine, plain and simple. The whole film is built on simplicity until the end but theres also a deeper meaning behind each person and their place in the social ladder. I personally loved it but others can find this slow and pointless. Its Van Sant… More
Its an art house film based on Columbine, plain and simple. The whole film is built on simplicity until the end but theres also a deeper meaning behind each person and their place in the social ladder. I personally loved it but others can find this slow and pointless. Its Van Sant going full Euro!
Spencer S

The second in Gus Van Sant's death trilogy, Elephant is a strangely muted visage of the events at Columbine High School, the infamous school shooting that shook the foundations of the American educational system. In our nation the events of Columbine were especially traumatic,… More
The second in Gus Van Sant's death trilogy, Elephant is a strangely muted visage of the events at Columbine High School, the infamous school shooting that shook the foundations of the American educational system. In our nation the events of Columbine were especially traumatic, because it hit you in the one place that was safe, the one place that meant servitude and rapt attention, but never the sacrifice of our children's safety. In the blink of an eye school shootings became common incidences in America, which is why Van Sant probably decided to take this subject matter on with the detail that he did. Van Sant builds us s a world out of this school, involving us in the lives of several subsets of socially awkward groups, and the people who usually live out glory in the similar halls. What really worked with this film, is that we feel for the people who are being shot, but only because they are real, they are the kids who passed me in the halls of my former high school, untouched by adulthood. All the teenage actors were either amateurs or unprofessionals; if you hadn't known that up front they would seem either amazingly thoughtful of their roles, or were simply inept. Each of them is a blithe persona, with little to no character development or conflict in their personal life. Sure, Michelle doesn't like her body, John's father is an alcoholic, and Acadia panics when danger presents itself, but other than these tacked on attributes, there's very little to care about in these characters. It's not until their fates are chosen for them by the school shooters do we really care about them as human being, and that's only because the shooters are so blase about the entire thing. Though their development makes me angry too, there is this haunting scene where one shooter plays a beautiful piece on the piano, then looks over orders to buy these grisly guns for their planned attack. It was such a comparison, that it was shockingly striking. The ending was anticlimactic, and the acting in it was badly directed, and came off as stale. It's an interesting and subversive film, not well put together, but flowed like a vignette in a poetry tableau.
Melvin W

Alex: Eeney... Meeney... Meiny... Moe... Catch a... Tiger... By its... Toe... "An ordinary high school day. Except that its not." First off, what makes a movie like this good is the complete opposite of most of the movies we watch. Most movies are good of they entertain… More
Alex: Eeney... Meeney... Meiny... Moe... Catch a... Tiger... By its... Toe... "An ordinary high school day. Except that its not." First off, what makes a movie like this good is the complete opposite of most of the movies we watch. Most movies are good of they entertain us and we are able to have fun and laugh during them. In order for Elephant to be a success, it had to be the complete opposite from that. It had to disturb the viewer and leave them feeling less than optimistic. Gus Van Sant definitely succeeded with that. He made a movie that couldn't have been easy or in anyway fun to make because it so damn risky. If anything is done wrong, the film could come off as just an exploitation of situations like Columbine. This doesn't come off like that at all. Elephant follows a lot of students through their normal everyday lives at their high school. By a lot, I mean a lot. The first hour jumps between students. We follow them through the hallways, to the cafeteria, into the bathroom, into classrooms, into the library and it all makes the viewer feel like they are in a maze. The film isn't linear either, in fact it shows the same tiny events from different people's perspective throughout the movie. As the student body makes their way through a normal day of classes and socializing, two students stay home getting ready to take the school by storm. Another thing that is important before going into Elephant is to know that it is very artsy. If you don't like movies like that, this will probably be no different. The first hour is an exploration in the tediousness of our everyday life. Van Sant is creating the sense of the average, boring lives we all live on a day to day basis. We walk, we talk, we eat, in the grand scheme of things, nothing much happens. We always hear from people who were near tragedies that it was like any other day. That's basically what Van Sant is saying with the first hour of the movie. He doesn't take any liberties with his approach in order to entertain an audience that can't appreciate his indie style. Van Sant is great at creating these realistic, set in high school movies. They are so realistic, that a lot of people won't like them. The actors aren't really acting, but conversing as regular people do in the real world. It's the exact same approach he had with Paranoid Park, which was another great artsy independent film. People will be easily bored by the film as we spend minutes just following a character from a soccer field, all the way across some school land, through one door where he takes three or four turns in the hallways and finally arrives at his destination 5 minutes later. The film has an unsettling tone right from the beginning, before anything happens. If you walked into the movie as it was starting with no knowledge of the plot; after 10 minutes you would know something crazy was going to happen. The quiet score throughout the whole movie really helps in achieving this tone. You kind of become hypnotized by everything that's going on, or at least I did, and you end up watching the movie without moving or blinking. At the end of this film, I sat through all the credits and still probably sat there five minutes afterwards. I never do that; I think that may be the first time I've sat through an entire thing of credits. Another reason many people wouldn't like this is because it ends so abruptly. Van Sant offers no clear motivation by the shooters and no conclusion to how things turned out. This is frustrating for some, but I like it because we don't know why people do this sort of thing. We can come up with all the excuses we want and Van Sant puts some of them in the film, not so much to blame them, but to show why many people think these events occur. These excuses include video games and bullies. These are the same things that many people blame Columbine on, but many don't know that Eric(one of the shooters at Columbine) was a pretty popular kid, who was good with girls and was in no way an outcast. The other one was a little less social, but still in no way an outcast. If you haven't read Columbine by Dave Cullen, I highly recommend it. It will change your whole thought process about Columbine. Gus Van Sant really does deserve some respect for his accomplishments with Elephant. He made a powerful and sad movie about school shootings without adding any unrealistic melodrama or in anyway exploiting school shootings. He didn't make this movie to make a lot of money and that is quite obvious.
Lucas M

A interesting film, with good story. Van Sant's made a great work, showing the differents point of viewers by your characters. Elephant, brings a unconventional narration and chilling moments. But, the matter on this movie is have an monotonous screenplay. What made, a… More
A interesting film, with good story. Van Sant's made a great work, showing the differents point of viewers by your characters. Elephant, brings a unconventional narration and chilling moments. But, the matter on this movie is have an monotonous screenplay. What made, a disappointed for me. It's why i, have an great expectation about Van Sant's film. If, Elephant won the Palme d'or in Cannes Film Festival in 2003, this year was not a good year for the Festival. I understand the director: show the ordinary day of everybody, without shocking lines or scenes, and what change after a tragedy, just like presents Elephant, the problem is: one thing is see this life and another is lived. Gus Van Sant, need better yours screenplay. Looks like, that a good film made by him, just is good if a different scriptwriter made. Still, Elephant are an unforgettable motion picture with great performances. Fresh.
Carlos M

With a flawless direction and long elegant sequence shots, this film moves in a perfect pace, slow and careful, following and observing the characters prior to an impending tragedy. I only wish I had felt more involved with them, and the amateur actors should have evoked a more… More
With a flawless direction and long elegant sequence shots, this film moves in a perfect pace, slow and careful, following and observing the characters prior to an impending tragedy. I only wish I had felt more involved with them, and the amateur actors should have evoked a more authentic sense of terror.
Coxxie M

oh man this is the most interesting you can get without having a script Gus got lucky.
Conner R

Probably the most famous entry in the Death Trilogy, Elephant is probably on of the most relevant films of the decade. It is a perfect criticism of high school from multiple aspects. It shows the daily life of everyone you could possibly encounter in high school, thrown together with… More
Probably the most famous entry in the Death Trilogy, Elephant is probably on of the most relevant films of the decade. It is a perfect criticism of high school from multiple aspects. It shows the daily life of everyone you could possibly encounter in high school, thrown together with an all too realistic culmination of events. There were some great performances from Alex Frost and John Robinson, perfect choices for leading characters. The video style filming is probably the most effective here because it feels like you're watching something like Columbine take place. On another note, I think it's kind've the American Graffiti of its time. Honestly it's the only true hangout movie that has really come out to represent this new generation. It makes since that this is more of a dark approach because it reflects the apathetic and jaded attitude we tend to have.
El Hombre I

Elephant is not a film for everyone. It is slow moving, occasionally awkward, and unsettling. The structure of Elephant is one of the things that make this effort intriguing to watch. In a Rashomon like style, you follow each of the "characters" during the course of the day… More
Elephant is not a film for everyone. It is slow moving, occasionally awkward, and unsettling. The structure of Elephant is one of the things that make this effort intriguing to watch. In a Rashomon like style, you follow each of the "characters" during the course of the day that will change their world. A gliding steadicam follows students in uninterrupted shots between class with a false sense of security as they carry on with day to day activities. The film is bare bones in its simplicity. There is no real plot, it is just an ordinary day at school, until it's not. Van Sant makes no attempts to lay the blame of the impending tragedy onto anyone, or anything, in particular. He does point to certain factors that could have led to the horrifying conclusion leaving the viewer with their own opinions and could offer plenty to talk about with others. <a href="http://s273.photobucket.com/albums/jj203/goji9000/?action=view&current=elephant.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj203/goji9000/elephant.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
Alice S

Terrible. This movie is all cliche. It blames school shootings on video games and bullies. It separates its characters into cookie-cutter cliques with unbelievably trite activities and concerns. There are no true people at this school - only types. The repetitive non-linear… More
Terrible. This movie is all cliche. It blames school shootings on video games and bullies. It separates its characters into cookie-cutter cliques with unbelievably trite activities and concerns. There are no true people at this school - only types. The repetitive non-linear structure serves to build faux suspense, yet does nothing to reveal anything new about the characters. The one moment that shows <i>anybody</i> going against type is when one shooter kills the other. Why? The movie doesn't get into it. And the comically villainous dialogue at the end? Please. This movie isn't a character study, and it's not a call to action. It's not even terribly realistic, with all the silence and calm.
Lady D

Disturbingly realistic and a controversial topic to tackle. Certainly through the first half, it was very mundane and I found it difficult to keep watching, but of course in hindsight it?s certainly worth staying with to feel the impact of the finish. Filmed in a sort of… More
Disturbingly realistic and a controversial topic to tackle. Certainly through the first half, it was very mundane and I found it difficult to keep watching, but of course in hindsight it?s certainly worth staying with to feel the impact of the finish. Filmed in a sort of Documentary style, it?s certainly unique in it?s delivery, any other way would probably have disrespected many of the true events that have taken part in schools across America. One of a kind.
Bannan i

WOW. What a powerful film, and at the end...it's up to you to decide...what's the proper way to feel about it. [review TBC]
Jeremy S

Unforgettable. Dealing with a high school shoot out, the film has uncommon insight in the lives and minds of the teenage killers. Brilliant. Winner of the Cannes Film Festival. The second installment in Gus Van Saint's Death series.
Chris W

Quite an experience. More about tone than anything. I read a review on someone's blog that said that not only does this film not trivialiaze Columbine (as some have criticized it of doing), it also is not about school shottings (kinda like how Hitchcock's "The… More
Quite an experience. More about tone than anything. I read a review on someone's blog that said that not only does this film not trivialiaze Columbine (as some have criticized it of doing), it also is not about school shottings (kinda like how Hitchcock's "The Birds" is about everything but people being attacked by birds). This film walks a fine line between being flat-out pretentious and unaccessible for everyone and not. This is main;ly because of the indie/experimental style used in it's creation. Despite this little point, the experimental artsiness of it all is actually a big strength. Had this been a more mainstream or Hollywood type of film it wouldn't have been as good or powerful. The final fifteen minutes are done without any real emotion ofr music or slo-mo, making everything that happens all the more disturbing and unsettling. The film plays with time and sequence, but unlike stuff Tarantino does, it's not as immediately easy to follow. This bugged me a bit as it was hard to keep things in check, but at the same time, made things seem even more affecting since the whole movie is about a normal day that just goes horribly wrong with no real explanation or closure. KInda like everyday life. This film is not for everyone, but should be seen by everyone at least once. Like I said as I started this review, it's "quite an experience".
Jennifer X

As I've said before, Gus van Sant can only make great movies if he has his scripts pre-written for him. If you start with his vision straight-off he doesn't know what he's doing.
Aaron N

"I came to realize since I had no need to make a lot of money, I should make films I find interesting, regardless of their outcome and audience." This is a quote from director Gus Van Sant, who, after achieving success from directing Good Will Hunting, has mostly… More
"I came to realize since I had no need to make a lot of money, I should make films I find interesting, regardless of their outcome and audience." This is a quote from director Gus Van Sant, who, after achieving success from directing Good Will Hunting, has mostly (especially after the horrible Psycho remake experiment) decided to remain in the indie scene, making different, experimental films. This is a film that leaves a bad taste in your mouth but is admirable for a few reasons. Girl in Cafeteria: What are you writing? Alex: Uh, this? It's my plan. Girl in Cafeteria: For what? Alex: Oh, you'll see. The film is a fictitious retelling of the Columbine High School Murders, in which two male students walked into school on an ordinary day, armed with an assortment of weapons, and proceeded to kill a number of students. No conclusive motive was found, besides the fact that the students were considered "social outcasts." John McFarland: Hey, what are you guys doing? Alex: Get the fuck out and don't come back! Some heavy shit's going down! In this film, we are shown the perspective through the eyes of a number of characters before the event occurs and during. These scenes are all done with long tracking shots, where mainly nothing happens besides watching students walk around the school with little dialog. The dialog that does transpire is mainly improvised and consists of random high school chatter. I am not really gonna explain what I believe the point that I got out of this is, but the film certainly does not try to explain any of the characters actions, in favor of letting audiences feel out to what they believe happened. Now with that being said, knowing that the film will not offer any sort of opinion and knowing what actually happened in real life, what is the point of this movie in the first place? It is of course very slow placed, since nothing really goes on until the violence starts, and knowing that this violence is going to happen does and doesn't help the film in terms of feeling the building dread that will occur. Still, this film is well made in terms of what its doing. It goes against most conventions besides the convention of being different because its an art house film. And it is effectively creepy at certain points. John McFarland: Excuse me sir, don't go in there!
Emile T

The movie that could have been so much more. Despite the theme, it seemed like the story had no goals, like it was leading to a conclusion without meaning. I knew what the movie was about, what sick and disturbing scenes it would show me, but I was horribly disappointed. Yes,… More
The movie that could have been so much more. Despite the theme, it seemed like the story had no goals, like it was leading to a conclusion without meaning. I knew what the movie was about, what sick and disturbing scenes it would show me, but I was horribly disappointed. Yes, we know in almost every scene that something terrible will happen and this is great. But the scenes still had no meaning. The directing was so prententious. It was the longest 80 minutes I've experienced in a movie.
Christopher M

This seems to be the type of film that Gus Van Sant does best. Elephant is essentially a reaction to the issues brought to the fore by the Columbine shootings in 1999. The film features an anonymous group of teens in an anonymous American high school - obviously the point is this… More
This seems to be the type of film that Gus Van Sant does best. Elephant is essentially a reaction to the issues brought to the fore by the Columbine shootings in 1999. The film features an anonymous group of teens in an anonymous American high school - obviously the point is this could be any group of kids anywhere, and this is aided by the fact we don't get to know them that well (though well enough). The film tells its story as if it isn't telling a story at all; it takes a very detached, almost poetic point of view to the characters and settings, following the main characters (we're introduced to by name) mostly in tracking shots. We follow them down long, often lively but somehow bitterly lonely hallways, and we see the interactions they have with each other. This is all strikingly real; Van Sant completely captures the essence of a high school culture, and tension in this very real world builds to the shooting. I didn't really agree with or appreciate the obvious connections that were made between the shooting and videogames, as this a theory (or myth?) that has never been more than very shaky at best. I'd rather this was left out, even if it is part of the overall issue. Other than that, this is an awesome film. It reminds me of Larry Clark's Bully in that the characters (played mostly by non-actors) and events are so real it's almost unsettling. And in all of this, there are some shots that portray moments of utter beauty in all the loneliness of this somewhat mad world. Check it out.
Elvira B

Sometimes, Gus Van Sant can get very heavy. The stories that the movie tells are fragments, minuscule moments of a few high school students' lives about to end. They are told in a very beautiful, captivating visual style: we follow them through the halls, the classrooms, from the… More
Sometimes, Gus Van Sant can get very heavy. The stories that the movie tells are fragments, minuscule moments of a few high school students' lives about to end. They are told in a very beautiful, captivating visual style: we follow them through the halls, the classrooms, from the outside to the inside of the school... we hear them talk, gossip, cry. Van Sant drew inpiration from the school shootings at Columbine to compose this poem about how an entire universe, each kid with hopes, deams, plans, and fears, can be destroyed in less than a few seconds. In tthat sense, the movie succeeds: it endears us, or at least connects us to the characters, then shows us their demise. Unfortunately, Elephant left me feeling cold and empty. Van Sant showed me, with horrific realism, how the two sociopathic students purchased a rifle, then cold-bloodedly planned everything out and encouraged each other to 'just enjoy it', and then how they shot each kid. But he never explained why, what caused it, what was behind it. Not a single explanation. I felt like I was watching some exploitation movie, with all those gunshots and all that blood, without being given any background or any conclusions. If, perhaps, Van Sant only wanted to show us the tragedy, then it works. He makes us feel the pain and grief for all the lflourishing lives that were lost. But a movie with a power as big as this one's could have used it to dig a bit deeper. I was left unsatisfied, although Elephant is not a bad movie, not in any way. It's beautiful and heartbreaking, but ultimately shallow.