Water for Elephants
*** Out of ****
I love carnivals. More particularly, I love media about carnivals. If it has a carnival or circus in it, I will give it at least a shot. From La Strada (Fellini) to Sawdust and Tinsel (Bergman), to Freaks (Browning)and Vampire Circus (It’s a Hammer film…long story), I will always give it a shot. The traveling carnival is what kept me watching the fifth season of Heroes (such a shame, it started so well) and don’t get me started on HBO’s Carnivale (damn you HBO execs.) Water for Elephants was intriguing to me on many levels. I had read part of the book and found it engaging and well done, unfortunately I was in college at the time and was reading bits and pieces of it in between finals and papers. It concerns the life of Jacob, who upon learning of his parent’s death hitches up with a traveling circus as their vet. There he falls in love with the star performer and clashes with her mentally ill abusive, yet frighteningly charming husband, who runs the carnival (a departure from the book, where the abusive owner and mentally Ill, and also abusive, husband are separate characters.)
The film is not without its flaws, it feels a bit slow at times, and the characters, despite the three main leads, seem like they could be really great and memorable, yet are pretty much regulated to living scenery status. However, lush sets, fantastic costumes, and some beautiful bits of camera work do create a visual richness that I loved. Now, as for those three leads; Robert Pattinson plays Jacob and while I will never be one who finds merit in the Twilight franchise, he seems to be a very solid actor with some very good nuances and notes to his craft. (I feel the same way about his Twilight costar Kristen Stewart, who was very good as Joan Jett. It is perhaps the sparkly teen vamp films themselves that are terrible, and not so much the fault of the performers.) So R-Patz, as he is annoyingly referred to in the tabloids, proves himself to be a very capable actor sans sparkles. Reese Witherspoon plays Marlena, the ingénue, and she plays it the way Witherspoon always plays her characters; old fashioned Hollywood glamour, poise, sophistication and perfect nuance. I love Reese Witherspoon, I always have, and I feel she is the rare actress who is both a fine thespian and great talent, as well as being everything that is Hollywood glamour. Finally, the gem, the joy and the insidiously charming experience that is Christoph Waltz. You remember him, right? Who could forget him? He was the one you knew was winning best supporting actor at that year’s Oscars before the opening credits had rolled for Inglorious Basterds. He may never get the chance to play a good guy here in the sates, but do we want him to? Watching him in this film is a treat, and even if the rest of the film needed some work, His chemistry and interaction between the two other leads more than makes up for it. His character is charming, affable and utterly despicable, yet at the same time it is completely different from Hans Landa. I saw this because comparisons are definitely going to be made, and I feel they are unjust. Despite the fact that Landa was a Nazi, you still liked him; you liked watching him and laughed with him as he moved the pieces around. Auguste is not like that, his charm is a mask, and his true self, which manifests itself in a difficult scene, is loathsome. You want something bad to happen to him, you hate him and everything about him, and you wait with baited breath for him to meet a messy end. I would have made the climax bigger, or less abrupt. I would have kept Holbrook’s voice as the narrator rather than the strange transition. I would have expanded the circus and made it a character in and of itself. All in all, without the strong cast and unique setting, Water for Elephants could have been boring and dry. Even with the positives it almost falls into that trap. However Waltz, Witherspoon, Pattinson, and a nice framing device with Hal Holbrook, do create a nice little package.
