Water for Elephants (2011)

Romantic drama directed by Francis Lawrence. 

Robert Pattinson stars as a young veterinary medicine student, Jacob Jankowski, who joins a travelling circus in 1931. He meets the sadistic ringmaster (Christoph Waltz) and falls in love with his wife (Reese Witherspoon). 

It’s compelling. The circus crew live and travel on a train, and their micro-world is conveyed well. Waltz is convincingly multi-faceted and menacing. The love story is touching without being schmaltzy. And the CGI animals seem completely real. 

The one flaw – and it’s a big one – is the slightly cheesy framing device in which we see Jankowski as an old man (Hal Holbrook), looking back on his life and narrating the story. Why was this considered necessary?

Also, the title makes no sense. Maybe it works in the novel (by Sara Gruen), but it jars a little for this adaptation.

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