Review of Elephant (2003) by Mattbrady99 — 24 Mar 2015

Don't let the title fool you. The movie doesn't have elephant in it, but it has a deep meaning to it that will make your feel like mash after thinking about it to long.

The story is about high school violence that unfolds on an ordinary school day, inside an American high school, filled with schoolwork, football, gossip and socializing. For each of the students we meet, high school is a different experience: stimulating, friendly, traumatic, lonely, hard.

Elephant is loosely based on the school shooting in 1999 known as Columbine High School massacre with the shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. When I say loosely I really mean loosely because this isn't base on a true story bullsh't that you always get in movies, no it's actually Gus Van Sant wanted to make a movie relating to the biggest school massacre of all time and showing loneliness and depression due to bully and the big things around them which later ended violently.

Now this movie isn't for anyone and those's who are expecting the first, second and third act or just a simple movie, well your not going to get some of that. The ending without giving anything away ended in a way that I felt loads of people are saying to themselves "What the hell, what was that about? what the hell did I just watch and why did it end like that?". I won't lie but I took me time to think over the ending and after doing some research I think I got it, but if I have to explain it to you means spoiling it for you and I like people to go into a movie with only knowing the story and that's it.

Gus Van Sant directed this movie in a way that it has a depressing and lonely feel to it at time or maybe it's just me, but anywhere he directed this movie excellently and probably my second favorite movie from him.

The long shot takes and the fact the movie is set in one day and the different day the characters have I thought it was brilliant and a smart move to do. To be honest I didn't notice this until late on in the movie.

For problems I didn't really have any. The acting was all good, the directing as I said before was filmed top notch and the fact that movie leaves you hanging cold cold.