Plot

"Elephant!" is a dark comedy framed around mental health in young children and the stigmas that prevent them from getting treatment. The film begins with an eleven-year-old black girl named Amara who enters a predominately white school halfway through the school year. In an attempt to assimilate, Amara adopts a name and an identity to blend in with her new environment and befriends an affluent, troubled classmate named Holly. At first, Holly does her best to impress Amara by presenting herself as the ultimate Queen Bee, while Amara tries to impress Holly by presenting herself as her equal. Yet unbeknownst to Amara, her sly comments undercut each and every one of Holly's attempts to project a perfect life. According to Holly, her parents, who are not divorced, live separately because they each found the perfect home to die in. After an embarrassing incident in the girl's bathroom that chips at Holly's facade, the next day at school Holly is absent. Amara tells her class that Holly's absence is because she ended her life--at least that's what Holly told her will happen. This film's title derives from that age-old expression, "the elephant in the room." While the title symbolizes Holly's mental health, which becomes glaringly obvious to all, it also symbolizes Amara, a figure whose presence cannot be ignored. Despite her initial effort of not drawing attention to herself, Amara can't help but to stand out in a sea of white people.—Chinwe Okorie