Based on the book of the same name by Sara Gruen and directed by Francis Lawrence, Water for Elephants was a 2011 historical romance that starred Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz. Pattinson, of course, played the lead role of Jacob Jankowski and Witherspoon as his love interest, Marlena Rosenbluth. In addition, Waltz played Marlena’s abusive husband, August. The movie used a Great Depression era circus called the Benzini Brothers’ as a back drop.
That being said, the film began in the present. It began when an older version of Jacob (played by Hal Holbrook) got separated by his nursing home group at a circus and met the proprietor of said circus. This led to Jacob telling the proprietor about his time working for the Benzini Brothers’ Circus in 1931 (the same year the circus seemed to be). Once in the past, it showed him about to take his finals in college (to be a vet). This came to an end, however, when his parents got killed in a car wreck. Shortly after, he discovered that the bank was repossessing his parent’s house so he had to go out on his own. In doing so, he ran along the train tracks where he ended up jumping on board one such train. Onboard said train, he ended up meeting several members of the circus (but mostly a drunkard named Camel). It wasn’t until after his first day helping with the work where he met Marlena, August, and his roommate Kinko. However, he almost got thrown overboard when he put down one of the horses in Marlena’s act (the star of the show). As luck would have it though, August would purchase an elephant named Rosie. And throughout the course of the story, August would end up displaying both his abusive and tyrannical qualities while Jacob and Marlena slowly fell in love with each other. This all came to a head when Jacob and Marlena decided to jump the train together (when August’s men were planning to toss Jacob off themselves).
All in all, there’s not much to say about this moving. Unlike most mainstream critics, I did not have a problem with the cast. Waltz and Witherspoon were predictably excellent, but Pattinson surprised me. He showed why he is by far the most talented of the “Twilight Three.” Truthfully, he may be the only member of those three that is ready to be a lead actor. And also, Pattinson and Witherspoon seemed to have good chemistry together. But besides that, the directing was pretty good in itself. It wasn’t anywhere close to being as good as the Godfather or Curse of the Golden Flower, but that’s not saying much. The camera work was pretty good, especially in the way they followed the characters throughout the train. Also, I felt the narration worked extremely well. More than likely, it was taken verbatim from the actual book—which I have yet to read—because it definitely felt like a piece of literature.
That being said, I did enjoy the movie. In fact, I enjoyed the movie a hell of a lot more than I thought I would.