The most fluid of films, it glides through its 81 minutes with a mesmerizing ease, skating on smooth tracking shots down the corridors of an American high school and into the heart of an American malaise.
Comment
11/07/03
Elephant (2003)
71
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:139
Fresh:98
Rotten:41
Average Rating:7/10
Consensus: The movie's spare and unconventional style will divide viewers.
Runtime: 81 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Winner of the Palme d’Or and Best Director prizes at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, Gus Van Sant’s Elephant takes us inside an American high school on what appears to be an ordinary day.... [More]
Starring: John Robinson, Elias McConnell, Alex Frost, Eric Deulen
Director: Gus Van Sant
Reviews for Elephant
As movies go, it's wholly predictable, occasionally and intentionally dull, and apparently quite lazy.
11/07/03
It is aggravating, but again, like Gerry, not dismissible.
11/07/03
A small, improvisatory, quiet movie whose modesty and lack of preening self-importance mask what is actually a remarkably ambitious and bravura piece of filmmaking.
11/07/03
...suggests that in our contemporary culture, Columbine wasn't inexplicable but inevitable.
11/07/03
It is hard to make absolute sense of. Yet it invites us to feel quite strongly about our conclusions.
11/07/03
I don't think Van Sant's movie provides us with enough of an answer to be regarded as anything more than an experiment.
11/07/03
Bold and impressionistic.
11/07/03
An understated, hypnotic stroke of brilliance.
11/07/03
Startling and brilliant.
11/07/03
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.
11/07/03
Top CriticThe mixture of the mundane and the poetic in 'Elephant' creates a mesmerizing mood...reinforces Van Sant's position as one of the minimalist magicians of contemporary cinema.
11/07/03
Elephant is hard to forget, it's just too bad it doesn't have more to say.
11/07/03
Even though it is, in many ways, a hugely unsatisfying film ... American audiences are also likely to find it an absorbing and chilling little movie that sneaks up to deliver a considerable emotional wallop.
11/06/03
Evasive and maddening? You bet. Brilliant, enlightening? That, too. From where I sit, it's the most important American movie of the year.
11/06/03
Elephant demands a commitment to sticking with a nontraditional story. There's no three-act structure here, no consolation at the end of the line.
11/06/03
In the spaciousness of its concerns, it amplifies some burning questions about American life.
11/06/03
An exercise in voyeurism and a trancelike plunge into the dark side of American teen life that can both fascinate and repel you.
11/06/03
Elephant is an arty but not artistic variation on an internet theory about the events that culminated in the Columbine High School shootings in April of 1999
11/05/03
...has so little to say about (school shootings) and the culture which produces them that it becomes paradoxically tedious once the killing starts.
11/04/03
Latest News for Elephant
August 26, 2007:
RT-UK's What to Watch at the Edinburgh Film Festival
Rotten Tomatoes UK heads up north to take in the sights and sounds of the Edinburgh Film Festival. And as the celebration of cinema draws to a close we present what's hot and... More...
What’s Hot On RT
Other News
Fresh Links
Featured
RT on YouTube 
Subscribe to RT's YouTube channel and don't miss a second of our cracking video content.
RT on Twitter
Follow Rotten Tomatoes and join us as we tweet about the week's releases.
IGN RSS Feeds