After reading the book of this last summer (it has a post on here somewhere!), I was really excited when I learnt Water For Elephants was being made into a film. Not being a huge fan of Twilight, I was a little disappointed to learn that Robert Pattinson would be playing the lead role, as I had a soft spot for Jacob Jankowski in the book. However, his performance was miles apart from slushy Edward Cullen, showing he is a talented actor that has managed to break away from his stereotype role of teenage heartthrob.
The film is set in 1930s America, and tells the tale of Jacob, a veterinary science student at Cornell University. In the middle of his final exams he learns that his parents have been killed in a car crash, leaving him with no home or business due to his father's philanthropist ways of charging for animals' treatments. Alone and homeless, he leaves town and jumps a train, which turns out to belong to The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show On Earth. Due to his vet training, he is employed to look after the animals, and so begins his life in a travelling circus.
He meets a number of new friends, in particular Camel, a fellow Polish immigrant, and Walter, a dwarf who performs with a Jack Russell called Queenie. Due to his wealthy background, Jacob is also thought highly of by August, the circus ringleader. He has a beautiful wife called Marlena, who is the star act of the show. She rides a troupe of horses, and performs with an elephant called Rosie when she is acquired from another circus that goes bust. But August has an awful temper, and abuses the animals and his wife if things go wrong. When Jacob falls for Marlena, disaster ensues.
The book has a strong plot which translates to the screen very well, and Christoph Waltz as August is brilliant, portraying the perfect combination of aggression and desperation that makes the audience both pity and loathe him. The circus scenes are beautiful to watch, capturing the nostalgia of the era gorgeously, and you get a true sense of community amongst all the workers and performers.
The only negatives I have of the film are subtle. The film begins with a supposedly 93 year old Jacob telling the story. However the actor, Hal Holbrook, despite being 86, looks quite young, and still seems very nimble for such an age. The chemistry between Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon (who plays Marlena) is lacking at times, which I think could be due to the significant age difference between the actors (he is 25, she is 35) but it is not so cringe-making that it seems fake. Also a number of the acrobatic scenes have quite clunky transitions, so it is difficult to ignore the fact that there are separate people doing the stunts and acting. However, in such an action-filled film, I suppose this is to be expected.
All of these negatives do not mean that my overall view of the film is a bad one, though. I think it is admirably loyal to the book, something that is rare these days, and the emotional scenes really include and affect the viewer. It gives out some good messages about overcoming domestic abuse, and discourages animal cruelty, which is so often associated with circuses nowadays. Well worth a watch (and a read!).
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