HBO Films
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Elephant
An ordinary high school day. Except that it's not.
Several ordinary high school students go through their daily routine as two others prepare for something more malevolent.
- Original title
- Elephant
- Language
- EN
- Country
- US
- Budget
- $3,000,000
- Revenue
- $10,000,000
CinemaSerf
Jul 2, 2026 · via TMDB
With the atrocity of the Columbine massacre still fresh in many American minds, Gus Van Sant has a go here at imagining some of the psychological and societal causes that drove two ostensibly ordinary college lads to arm themselves to the hilt and take to the corridors of their school with devastating effects. "Alex" (Alex Frost) and "Eric" (Eric Deulen) are unremarkable in almost every aspect of their teenage, angsty, lives and are surrounded by a flock of personalities which tick almost every box when it comes to that dreaded expression - "coming of age". There are even a group of girls who engaged in some synchronised post-lunch vomiting, but we mainly focus on the floppy haired "John" (John McFarland) whose alcoholic father (Timothy Bottoms) is constantly trying to rebuild a relationship with his increasingly distant son - a new arrival at this large and anonymous institution. The chronology doesn't help. Or does it? By watching two lads dressed in fatigues with fully stocked kit bags walk into the building near the start of the film - and recapped a few times thereafter - we know what is going to happen - albeit we don't see the faces of the perpetrators. Does that rob the film of jeopardy or does it rather bravely suggest that this film is more about investigating the causes of their behaviour than it's results? Large scale education has been likened to an ant-hill. People coming and going in an almost factorial procession with little opportunity for individuality or to stand out. What better way for two people to make their presence felt? Is it a cry for attention or is more the result of endless hours playing shoot 'em up video games where targets make points and points make... prizes? It's quite subtly ramming that disconnect down our throats disguised as teenage hormonal norms and there I felt it quite subliminally effective: with the geeks and nerds; the handsome and the less so; the popular and the shunned all subject to the same rather arbitrary "justice" of two guys whose connection with any sort of normal reality had been well and truly severed. On that front, I felt that Frost, especially, managed by a combination of an understated less-being-more style of characterisation and some disarmingly potent dialogue to exemplify the peculiarities of a friendship rooted in emotional and physical ambiguity and increasingly ambivalent to the effects of their actions on others. Revenge? Maybe. Or perhaps more a cry just to be noticed, valued, respected? It's divisive and controversial, and the refrains of the beautiful "Für Elise" on the piano add an extra dimension of calmness to the calculated nature of a denouement that is almost surreal and is this is probably my favourite feature from a director who is no stranger to quirky self-indulgence.
User reviews courtesy of TMDB.
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Alex Frost
Alex
Eric Deulen
Eric
John Robinson
John McFarland
Elias McConnell
Elias
Carrie Finklea
Carrie
Bennie Dixon
Benny
Nathan Tyson
Nathan
Timothy Bottoms
Mr. McFarland
Matt Malloy
Mr. Luce
Larry Laverty
Teacher #3
Ruben Bansie-Snellman
GSA Student
Jason Seitz
GSA Victim
Vana O'Brien
P.E. Instructor
Joseph Sackett
GSA Student
Ellis Williams
GSA Teacher
Sherilyn Lawson
Teacher #1
Joe Cronin
Science Teacher
Adolf Hitler
Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Alejandro Rodríguez
The Titular Elephant
Eric Alan Edwards
Additional Photography
Harris Savides
Director of Photography
Christopher Blauvelt
First Assistant Camera
Scott Patrick Green
Still Photographer
Gus Van Sant
Director
Gus Van Sant
Editor
Chris Steele
Electrician
Laura Albert
Associate Producer
Diane Keaton
Executive Producer
Jen Wall
Production Supervisor
Leslie Shatz
Sound Designer
Gus Van Sant
Screenplay
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Aug 29, 2003
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