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Elephant
Fine Line Features / HBO Films


5.5

based on 37 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 64 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for disturbing violent content, language, brief sexuality and drug use - all involving teens

Starring Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson, Elias McConnell, Jordan Taylor, Carrie Finklea, Nicole George, and Larry Laverty

An inside look at an American high school on what appears to be an ordinary day.

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Gus Van Sant
DIRECTED BY:	Gus Van Sant
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 4, 2004 Video: May 4, 2004 Theatrical: October 24, 2003
RUNNING TIME:	81 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

Winner, Golden Palm and Best Director, 2003 Cannes Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Premiere Glenn Kenny

I haven't been crazy about a lot of Van Sant's recent work, but what he does here is simply astonishing. [November 2003, p. 25]

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Van Sant gives no pat or easy answers. Instead he makes us squirm, worry, and think. That's why Elephant is a must-see movie.

100

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The effect is riveting and telling--not always realistic (none of the characters carry cell phones) but often enlightening.

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It simply looks at the day as it unfolds, and that is a brave and radical act; it refuses to supply reasons and assign cures, so that we can close the case and move on.

100

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The atmosphere is hypo-stylized, vividly generic and worse than real, like a doomy Frederick Wiseman documentary.

100

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Makes the Columbine shootings seem both abstract yet more painful and vivid. It also gets you excited all over again about the things movies can do.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The exquisitely exact photography and sound design represent the highest level of craft of Van Sant's career.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

A movie that throws out the rules with audacity, assurance and admirable moral seriousness.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

An understated, hypnotic stroke of brilliance.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

Working with cinematographer Harris Savides and serving as the film's editor, he (Van Sant) has fashioned a visual style and a narrative shape that has the quality of a waking dream, then a nightmare. Rarely do form and content add up with such harmonious grace and power.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Calmly, almost serenely, Mr. Van Sant and his superb cinematographer, Harris Savides, reveal a vision of contemporary American youth quite unlike any other.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Wisely, a lot like the real event. No answers are given, barely any questions are asked, and the film unfolds at a leisurely, inexorable pace that stymies the traditional filmmaking tropes of tension and release.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Is it, the debate asks, a truly substantial work or just a stylish cop-out? Well, for once, I'm voting with the French.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

To those who see no purpose to this film, I say the purpose is learning not to turn a blind eye. The unique and unforgettable Elephant keeps its eyes wide open.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Has a gentle, hypnotic tone that's insistently sweet and elegiac, in spite of the horrors that overwhelm the frame. In its juxtaposition of the serene and the violent, the beautiful and the brutal, the film achieves a balance that's exquisitely judged, tiptoeing artfully through a cultural minefield.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Like the violence in Alan Clarke's Elephant, the BBC documentary about Northern Ireland from which the film takes its name, Van Sant offers no straightforward reasons for what happens at this particular school. The explosion of violence is far from unmotivated, but its roots are presented as deeply personal and, even more troubling, ultimately inexplicable.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

By making the camera an observer, we get a perspective that often comes out of horror movies, a choice that whips the ordinary with the terrifying, an unforgettable mix.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Beauty competes with vacuity in Elephant, and for a good stretch of writer-director Gus Van Sant's maddeningly passive ode to high school innocence and Columbine-age youthful evil, beauty wins.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

A haunting elegy on the unpredictability of life. Never knowing what the next minute might bring is the elephant in all our lives.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

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.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Van Sant's audacious, poetic and emotionally distanced film doesn't even have a plot. It's just a random series of incidents one day at a suburban high school.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

The characters need more exploration, especially the killers. Yet this look at teen life and death chills you anyway.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

What the film does extremely well is take us deep into the crime scene, and give faces to the victims so we can experience this epic, incomprehensible and somehow prototypically American act of violence on a more personal and intimate level.

Newsweek David Ansen

There’s much to argue with, but this unconventional, oddly beautiful film resonates in unexpected ways.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Flagrantly artistic and transfixed by its own enigma, Elephant is strongest on evoking a succession of specific, "empty" moments and weakest on motivation.

The New Yorker David Denby

In the end, this odd, beautiful movie is remote and more suggestive than satisfying--a coolly impassive film about catastrophe made at a time when some of us might prefer an attempt at explanation. And yet Elephant is something to see. [27 October 2003, p. 112]

Slate David Edelstein

It's a daring and original effort, yet so noncommittal--so purposely vague--that it's apt to leave you flummoxed: at once stricken and etherized.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

This is a deeply disturbing (if not very satisfying) view of what happened at Columbine and in other school shootings.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

A movie that takes impartiality to new places artistically. The film is infuriating.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

It’s just another example of art-house hokey-pokey. Amazingly, this film won both the Palme d’Or and Best Director Award at Cannes, beating out, among others, "Mystic River."

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

As lead Columbine investigator Kate Battan has herself put it, “Everybody wants a quick answer. They want an easy answer so that they can sleep at night and know this is not going to happen tomorrow.” And now they have Gus Van Sant's Elephant.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

Given their lack of training, nearly all the young performers do a commendable job. It's the director who slips up by, among other things, dividing his cast into such predictable phyla.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Achieves some glancing poetic effects during its first hour, but becomes gross and exploitative during the shooting rampage of the final act.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

Elephant is not as bad as the National Rifle Association's decision to hold a pro-gun rally near Columbine High School shortly after the killings. Unlike the NRA, Van Sant doesn't have blood on his hands. But he shares something of its callousness.

Film Threat Don R. Lewis

A pointless rehashing of a horrible event.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The film itself is an exercise in frustration.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

A braggart piece of empty exhibitionism.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.5 (out of 10) based on 64 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Kevin C. gave it a10:
For those of you too young to recall or to lazy research the height of the Cold War, the movie is technically very accurate (unlike Fail-Safe). In fact, the equivalent of "Attack Plan R" still exists today(and we're still flying the same bombers and tankers --scary). Those of you who miss the bone dry humor are missing out. I used to show the scene where Peter Sellers is captured to my troops, to show them how Americans are perceived, and I use quotes like -- "I don't think it's fair to condemn an entire program because of a single slip up." -- in business all the time. So, the delicious script, the fantastic camera work and lighting and the terrific characterizations make this a winner Boys, the world was a different place then; you have to slip into the millieu.

Clay T gave it a9:
Flouridation!!!

Brian T gave it a9:
This was a great film, very original, the long sequences were hallucinatory, while Van Sant panders to the lovers of of storylines with flashbacks and story jumps. People who hate this film really have no clue, jumping to conclusions like that glorifies violence. It does anything B-U-T, it registers violence and nothing else. It doesn't judge or glorify. Haters are so scared to lose their gun-toting rights, they are almost foaming at the mouth. They are in such a panic, they simply can't stand any criticism on whatever, Opponents are immediately branded as Un-American, as if it is American to slaughter people senselessly ... Oh wait ,,, IT IS! The lack of wall to wall music was so refreshing.

Heather W. gave it a0:
I have officially found the worst movie of all time. The characters were all stereotypes, not even close to real people. The only message that we are told is that homosexuals, who play video games and watch documentaries on the Third Reich run out and kill people. It is not even shot that well. Throughly and utterly disappointing

Jeremy F. gave it a0:
This movie is the worst movie I've ever seen. I know all your 10-ers will say I'm crazy and badmouth me inside your head and say things like "How could he say this? He must have no taste." Well, honestly, I can't find one good thing in this movie. It drags on and the 90-minute duration feels like 120. It's ridiculous. I watched this movie cause everyone said it was so good and artistic. It's not. It is simply a director getting lost inside his own desire to be so deeply artistic and compelling. Trying too hard is unflattering, and usually does more bad than good. Although, it almost seems like he didn't try hard enough, as this is a bland movie in it's entirety. It has some long drawn out shots of someone just walking, and stayed locked on the screen (camera not moving, of course, for our entertainment) well after the person leaves. I found myself confused at times, but when I eventually connected the dots and saw this was all one day, I was even more horrified. I HATE the scene where the two killers on in the shower together and kiss. This is the most unimportant and unrelated scene I've seen in a movie in a very very very long time. A lot of people think this scene is a perk, showing a brief moment of their relationship but never delving into it. BULL! This is an unneeded potential-love scene. Whatever. I don't care that this movie has an inconclusive ending, but I don't like that all that really was shown to us as a motive was the kid getting a paper ball thrown at him. Stupid. If this is supposed to be a reinterpretation of Columbine, he should be locked up from all film equipment, because he did a poor job. I think the actors and actresses were all mediocre, which I suppose worked in favor since it was supposed (again trying too hard) to be a "normal" highschool on a "normal" day. The actual film of the movie was beautifully shot, but the way it was shot (the long drags, the pointless following scenes) threw me off. The 5 to 15-minute dialog-less points I nearly fell asleep during. I want to appreciate his craft, but this is an insanely overhyped (one of the most I've ever seen) movie, THAT I RECOMMEND TO NO-ONE!!!

[Anonymous] gave it a1:
This movie was boring, story is pretty slow. Nothing really happens in the movie. It got so boring that I skipped to the end. The ending ended too early.

Ariana M. gave it a10:
I think a lot of people want to point to this movie and say it's another case of "The Emperor has no clothes". But wow, I got this movie. Apart from how amazingly well it was done, I was actually looking for myself in those hallways. I graduated nearly ten years ago, but apart from it being much larger and much more beautiful, that WAS my highschool. I didn't see a single stereotype. I saw real people. Their personalities were barely glimpsed and yet they were never without personality. You knew it was there. But this movie was not a deep exploration of all the different people who inhabit a highschool, it was more like walking down the halls (which actually was the majority of the movie). In this case, the fact that this movie was difficult to watch is why everyone should see it. Perhaps it will incite some understanding and empathy-- not for killers, but for the people who have been suffering in isolation for one reason or another-- whether it's the blonde boy who seems so cool and struggles with an alcoholic father, to the 'nerdy' girl who loves looking at the sky and suffers ridicule every time she has to change out of her clothes after gym. I don't want to minimize the crime or the guilt of the killers, but I want to point out another villain in this movie and in our lives-- lack of empathy.

Elephant Fine Line Features / HBO Films

Elephant
Fine Line Features / HBO Films