Water for Elephants

Cecil says: Seen in Southampton, Long Island, part of the very affluent Hamptons.

So nice to see a little local cinema thriving on a Saturday evening. This was the first time we had had to queue up for tickets anywhere across America since we went to the Byrd Theater in Richmond. I’m not sure why the bulk of the audience was in the over 60s age bracket. Maybe because all the teenagers we lined up with were heading off to see Bridesmaids, or Pirates 4!

We had chosen to see Water for Elephants, though. This is a story of a love triangle in a circus in early 30s depression (and prohibition) America. A very romantic film, not so much because of the characters involved with the triangle, but because of the inevitable romance associated with life on the road as part of the circus. Amazing really that there haven’t been more film set in circuses over the years, but look at how powerful they are when they do get made (La Strada, Wings of Desire, that knife-throwing French film with Juliette Binoche about 10 years ago).

Reese Witherspoon was OK as the female love interest, but I struggle with her, having first seen her in Legally Blonde and I just can’t get that ditsy image of her out of my mind. The young Polish lad who woos her once he gets onto the circus is supposed, I guess, to be the heart-throb interest for the film. But there was little spark between them and when the ‘love scene’ finally happens, I was more distracted by the suddenly incontinent oldies heading off to the loo than I was by what was happening on the screen (maybe that was WHY they all headed off toiletwards at that point).

Best performance by far was the all-powerful husband and ringmaster, played by Christoph Waltz, who managed well the scary character-shifting of the demented tyrant, while combining bullying with insecurity once the bedroom door closed on the world.

A film in the ‘road movie’ genre, though it was on the rail tracks. Great 1920s/30s costumes. And a wonderful reminder of how many stories the old folk around us have to tell, which is something I’ve come to appreciate more and more in recent years.

***

Bea says: I don’t have the same reservations as Cecil about Reese Witherspoon, having seen her for the first time in Walk the Line, and I thought she did a good job here playing a vulnerable to abuse, hostage-to-fortune young woman. Like Cecil I thought the weak link was Robert Pattinson playing Jakob – I thought his acting wooden with little flair, although he may have been hampered by the scriptwriting, which I felt could have been better, having read part of the novel that this film is an adaptation of.

The film was very sumptuous (despite its Depression setting) and beautiful to watch and reminded me of nothing so much as that old classic The Greatest Show on Earth with Sinatra and Heston, also about a love triangle, as I recall (Australians of my age will remember seeing it on Bill King’s Picture Show, a sad loss to Saturday night TV), and, like Cecil, some of the other classic circus-set films and novels.

I had been somewhat nervous about witnessing cruelty to animals, real or faked, in the film, and indeed there was some faked, and according to recent newspaper reports there have been accusations of real issues regarding the training the elephant(s) would have required in order to perform the circus tricks in the film. This makes me feel somewhat ambivalent towards the film.

However, putting that concern to one side, this was a diverting way to spend an evening –rather like seeing an old time classic.

**.5