Water for Elephants

Review by Anthony Morris

For all the stories about kids who want to run away and join the circus, it’s not that often we get a movie where it actually happens.

So despite the soft-focus chocolate box camerawork and firm promise that once again the past is the most romantic place to hang lout in, it turns out that this otherwise fairly standard romantic drama is actually pretty interesting if you have the slightest interest in the golden age of circuses...

Otherwise know as - the Great Depression!

Back when times were hard, Polish veterinary student Jacob (Robert Pattinson) suffers a double blow when not only are both of his parents killed in a car crash but it turns out they didn’t have a cent to their name.

Hitting the road like so many other men did, he ends up hitching a ride on a circus train – not the safest way to travel, as carney folk didn’t worry much about throwing people off onto the rocks.

Turns out that a vet has his uses around big animals, and the circus’s slightly sinister owner and ringmaster August (Christoph Waltz) gives him a job on the basis of the work he does with the horse of the circus’ star attraction (and August’s wife) Marlena (Reese Witherspoon).

Of course, all that working together soon leads to deeper feelings, which aren’t such a good idea with august throwing people off the train every chance he gets.

The circus setting is vividly realised, giving the story a real sense of place even as the actual romance comes off as somewhat colourless. 

It’s as if they wanted to make a circus movie and knew the only way they could sell it was as a romance; while it might be true, it doesn’t mean the romance itself couldn’t have been beefed up a little.

3 out of 5

Water for Elephants
Australian release: 12th May, 2011
Official Site: Water for Elephants
Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, Christoph Waltz
Director: Francis Lawrence