Water for Elephants

Water for Elephants (2011) is about a veterinary student who joins a travelling circus during the Depression. About to sit his final examinations, Jacob learns his parents have been killed in a crash. The house goes to the bank. He is left with nothing and at night jumps onto a train. It belongs to a circus. Because of his training he is put in charge of the animals. The owner, August, performs a horse act with his wife Marlena, and the horse is sick. Then the circus buys an elephant. Rosie will not obey any command and August is violent with her. Jacob notices she responds to commands in Polish. The best thing in it is the economics of the circus. When the money ran out during the Depression, workers were thrown off the moving train; it was called red lighting and it was a real practice. It is adapted from Sara Gruen's novel. She worked in circus history archives while writing and many of the incidents are taken from the record. The elephant playing Rosie is a real animal named Tai. After the film's release an animal rights organisation published footage showing she had been mistreated during training years earlier and an argument followed; the production stated that no mistreatment occurred during filming. Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz star. Francis Lawrence directed. The period design and costume are the film's strength. It runs 120 minutes. Good for: period drama, romantic narrative, and the world of the circus. Less good for: the scenes of violence toward an animal are hard and the story is predictable.