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Taking place during the Great Depression, ‘Water for Elephants' whisks you into an era where circuses were all the rage. All the dying rage, that is. With folks struggling just to feed their families and the country in financial turmoil, people need a brief escape, and the circuses were the perfect portal for that. But the circuses were all but an endangered breed.
Breaking the Twilight mold he's so well-known for, Robert Pattinson portrays Jacob Jankowski, who unfolds throughout the film to reveal his simple morals and compelling, curious nature.
With nothing to his name after a tragic car wreck leaves both his parents dead, Jankowski leaves Cornell and his dreams of veterinary science behind on the day of his final exam and hits the road. Or, in his case, the tracks.
He soon finds himself engulfed in the world of the Banzini Brothers, the "Most Spectacular Show on Earth" – a traveling circus much like the more renowned Ringling Brothers. He swiftly lands a job as the show's personal Ivy League veterinarian, something even the competition doesn't have.
From day one he has his eyes on the prize, the ethereal Marlena (Reese Witherspoon). Marlena is the show's star performer and the trophy wife of the money-starved ringleader August (Christoph Waltz), who takes the prize for most complex character in the film. He goes through emotional acrobatics that make the viewer want to choke him one moment and feel compassion for him in the next.
The soundtrack is a fitting compilation of Depression-era songs and an original score by James Newton Howard, whose most notable work is for Peter Jackson's ‘King Kong' and ‘The Dark Knight.' It gently blends into the background, only peeking out to emphasize romantic scenes and passionate tension.
Leaving viewers gripped in an anecdotal choke-hold the entire time, the movie was more than I expected. Hardcore book junkies might hesitate before seeing it, though, as the film skips over some important parts of the book, most notably the scene that sets up Jankowski's character as a rebellious old man. It was slightly disappointing, but what the filmmakers did include was amusing and correct.
Based on the New York Times best-seller by Sara Gruen, and a personal favorite of mine, ‘Water For Elephants' is, in the words of the author herself, "the most spectacular show on earth," and it's definitely worth seeing.
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