Elephant (2003) on Netflix
In Portland, Oregon, several students go through an ordinary school day. John, Elias, Michelle, Nathan and Acadia are among them, while Alex and Eric prepare a mass shooting and bomb attack.
- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb7.1/10105,640 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes74%
Trailer
Plot summary
Students at a high school in Portland, Oregon, pass an ordinary day. John's father drinks and their relationship is strained. Elias, a photography student, is building a portfolio of his classmates. Michelle feels like an outcast and struggles with her body image. Nicole, Brittany and Jordan, three bulimic teens, complain about their parents. Nathan is a popular athlete and lifeguard, and Carrie is his girlfriend. Acadia, a friend of John, belongs to the school's gay-straight alliance. Two other students, Alex and Eric, are getting ready for a mass shooting and bomb attack, buying weapons online and planning to set off bombs in the cafeteria at lunch and shoot people as they run out.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Elephant (2003)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- There was no finished script before shooting began; the film was written on the fly during a 20-day shoot, with the cast improvising freely and helping shape scenes.
- Van Sant originally set out to make a factual documentary about the Columbine High School massacre before abandoning that approach for a fictionalized film.
- Van Sant did not title the film after Alan Clarke's 1989 short Elephant as a tribute; he only learned of Clarke's film from a producer after already choosing the title, and later found out it referenced the phrase "elephant in the room."
- Elephant is the middle film of Gus Van Sant's "Death Trilogy," bracketed by Gerry (2002) and Last Days (2005), all three based on real events.
- The associate producer credit on the film goes to JT LeRoy, which is a pen name used by the author Laura Albert.
- During the Suzano school shooting that occurred in 2019, both perpetrators were seen wearing clothing that resembled that of the main characters of Elephant.
