Elephant

Synopsis: A day in the lives of a group of average teenage high school students. The film follows every character and shows their daily routines. However two of the students plan to do something that the student body won't forget.
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Director(s): Gus Van Sant
Production: Fine Line Features
  8 wins & 11 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.2
Metacritic:
70
Rotten Tomatoes:
73%
R
Year:
2003
81 min
$1,189,207
Website
1,289 Views


Hike.

Stop it!

Go!

What's up, boys?

All right, let's go.

Let's go. Break.

Hike.

- What? Where are you going? Come here.

- Oh, my God, Dad.

Get in the car.

You're gonna be late for school. Come on.

- Mom's gonna kill you.

- What?

What are you doing?

Dad, I'm driving. No.

Get out of the car, Dad.

- What?

- Get out of the car.

- Seat belt.

- Yeah.

- What's the big deal?

- Can you just get in the car, please?

Let's go hunting.

Wanna go hunting this weekend?

Okay, let's go. Where are we going hunting?

You can use that old Jap 243

that Grandpa brought back from Truk.

- From where?

- Truk Islands, the South Pacific.

- Admiral Halsey, World War II.

- Yeah, right.

I was there.

You've been there, right, Dad?

No.

- Can I take your guys' picture?

- Why?

I'm just developing my portfolio right now,

doing random projects.

What's a portfolio?

It's when you put together pictures

to present your work.

- Get into galleries, stuff like that.

- What kind of work?

Anything. Like, portraits mainly.

- Like, naked people?

- No.

Want us to get naked with you,

take our picture?

No. I'm not for the outdoor-naked thing.

Public nudity is... No.

- No, we won't do that.

- All right, man.

Yeah? Okay, good.

You're too kind.

All right, let's go.

Be a little happier. Come on.

There you go.

Kind of look away.

Make a funny face.

One more.

Yeah, good. Keep walking.

Maybe one kiss.

Perfect. All right,

I actually gotta get to school.

- My name's Caroline.

- Nice to meet you. I'm Eli.

- Nice to meet you, too.

- What's up?

I'll give you guys a print

the next time I see you, or whenever.

- I'll try and make one today.

- All right. See you later, man.

All right, Dad, you stay here.

Paul will come pick you up.

Dad, just stay in the car. I gotta go.

Just stay in the car, please.

Hey, Paul? Yeah, it's John.

Dad's drunk again.

So, Mr. McFarland...

Hi, Mr. Luce. I'm sorry I'm late.

My dad took me out to lunch.

- I mean, breakfast.

- Meet me in my office.

I'm in trouble now.

Will you pick him up?

I'll leave the keys in the office.

Can you do it soon?

'Cause I don't know if he's gonna stay.

Set. Hike!

He's so cute.

- How are you?

- Good, and how are you?

I'm doing pretty good. How was Math?

- How do you think?

- That good?

That's all right, you know, it happens.

How's Sara doing?

Is everything okay with her?

She seemed a little off lately.

Yeah, I guess so. How's school for you?

It's about as good as it could be.

- Is P.E. Treating you all right?

- Yeah.

- Excuse me, miss?

- Yes?

- We need to sign out.

- Okay.

That picture was taken in Hawaii,

on the island of Maui.

What do you need, hon?

Get to class.

Don't be late for detention.

- Excuse me, miss? We need to sign out.

- Where was that picture taken?

That picture was taken in Hawaii,

on the island of Maui.

- That's real pretty.

- Isn't that cool? What do you need?

I need to leave these keys for my brother.

He's gonna come pick them up, 11:30-ish.

Put the keys in the envelope,

and put your brother's name on there.

His name's Paul.

By the way, what time will you be back?

Right around 1:
30 p.m.

- 11:
30 you said?

- Yeah, about.

- Okay, great.

- All right, thanks.

And don't forget to bring your own steaks.

- I'll see you then.

- Yeah, okay.

I'm saving for my car.

I'm paying it off this month.

Surprise!

Hello.

Hi.

What's wrong?

Nothing.

- You were crying.

- Yeah.

- Is it something bad?

- I don't know.

I'll see you later. I have to go

to a Gay-Straight Alliance meeting.

Okay.

Hi, Acadia, how you doing?

We were talking about

walking down a street being gay.

What do you think about that?

How can you tell?

- Or can you tell?

- Good question.

See, that's the thing. I don't think you can.

I think in some situations you can tell...

and there are situations

where people want you to know.

What makes you think you can tell?

If somebody wants you to know.

If someone has...

dyed pink hair.

Wait, what do you think about that?

I know it is,

but what do you think about that?

I don't think that wearing pink...

indicates your

sexual orientation necessarily.

- A lot of men wear pink.

- It is a lot, yeah.

Like rainbow necklaces.

I mean, if you have

tons of rainbow paraphernalia...

Jump in on this.

Help them out here a little bit.

Come on.

Did you guys see the cover story

on The Oregonian about the gay rams?

Yeah. See, this is a good topic here.

Go ahead.

Because apparently the farmers can't tell

if the rams are gay or not.

So you get a ram to breed and it's not...

so they waste a lot of money.

So they're doing all this research.

They spend, like, $10,000 on a ram.

That's a lot of money for one ram.

But the scary thing is

if they know what causes homosexuality...

is that something you could change,

something you could remove?

There's all this

weird political stuff around it.

I don't think we're talking about

the change, necessarily.

We're talking about

if we notice somebody on the street...

if we can tell they're gay.

I don't think you can.

How in the world do we know their spirit?

If they wear one of those bracelets,

the rainbow and stuff, that's a giver.

Somebody walking on the street,

all dressed up, wearing high heels...

Rainbow bracelets don't necessarily mean

that you're gay.

I've never seen anybody wear one

that isn't gay.

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Gus Van Sant

Gus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American film director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician and author who has earned acclaim as both an independent and more mainstream filmmaker. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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