Film review: Water For Elephants
Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon in a scene from Water For Elephants. Picture: Fox Source: Supplied
IF good looks could kill, Robert Pattinson would be facing charges of mass murder simply for stepping before the cameras.
The lady-slaying heart-throb of Twilight fame is not required to act in the conventional sense of the word.
Having been blessed with a delicately sculpted cranium that catches the light just so, all Pattinson needs to do is to remain relatively still and stare intently in an appropriate direction.
All the better for everyone else to stare intensely in his direction.
Needless to say, Water for Elephants is stacked with moody money shots of the Pattinson dial, which may never change channels in our lifetime.
What of the film itself? Well, it's a deceptively enjoyable, very old-fashioned romantic drama based on the Sara Gruen best-seller about love, longing and large animals in the early 1930s.
Pattinson plays Jacob Jankowski, an earnest and sensitive young vet student who runs away to join the circus. as you do when your parents perish in a car accident while you were sitting your final exam.
Though Jake starts off small in the big-top world, shovelling poop and sweeping cages, it isn't long before he is rising through the ranks of the struggling Benzini Brothers troupe.
Our hero's ascent coincides with the arrival of a new star attraction, a stubborn "bull" elephant named Rosie. at 53 years of age, Rosie has been there and stomped on that, and needs a lot of loving persuasion to be coaxed into the spotlight.
However, circus owner August (Christoph Waltz) is an impatient man with tickets to sell and bills to pay. Animal welfare is not his strong suit. Showtime is go time. as long as Jacob can get Rosie to play nice, then both man and beast get to keep their job.
It would be a workable enough arrangement, if only Jacob did not also want to play nice with Rosie's partner in the act, the glamourous Marlena (Reese Witherspoon). Who also just happens to be the wife of the boss.
You would be quite within your rights to declare this whole set-up to be a sack of old corn, if not for two undeniable saving graces.
The first is director Francis Lawrence's superb grasp of time and place. The Depression era was obviously a trying time for travelling entertainers, and Lawrence does not spare us from the hard-scrabble nature of the business back then. (Instead of being handed a pink slip and severance pay, sacked circus workers were routinely thrown from moving trains.)
The second is the immense anchoring presence of the Austrian actor Christoph Waltz. We already know from his Oscar-winning turn as the Jew-hunting Nazi officer in Inglourious Basterds that Waltz has the love-to-loathe thing down to a fine art. However, he outdoes himself here in a role that arguably called for a lot less than what is eventually supplied.
VISIT waterforelephants.com
Water For Elephants (M)Star rating: * * *Director: Francis Lawrence (I am Legend)Starring: Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon, Christoph Waltz, Paul Scheider, Hal Holbrook–Some junk, a trunk and Waltz's away–
<a href="http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/film-review-water-for-elephants/story-e6frfmw0-1226055379753tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/film-review-water-for-elephants/story-e6frfmw0-1226055379753Fri, 13 May 2011 04:27:23 GMT 00:00">Film review: Water For Elephants
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