Water For Elephants

“Robert Pattinson’s Sideshow”

The circus is often described as “the greatest show on earth”. But music video director Francis Lawrence shows that he’s incapable of cinematic greatness. His film version of the popular novel “Water For Elephants” is dull and lifeless. Even with ace screenwriter Richard LaGravenese (“The Bridges Of Madison County”) on board, Lawrence is more concerned with the visuals rather than with getting any real emotion to leap off the pages and on to the screen.

The casting of “Twilight’s” sexy vampire Robert Pattinson may have been viewed as money in the bank by producers, but Pattinson meanders through this movie in a zombie-like trance offering no romantic chemistry with Reese Witherspoon. When we meet Reese’s character, she is married to the villain of the story played with poisonous venom by Christoph Waltz. Waltz plays the owner of a traveling circus who employs Pattinson as a veterinarian to care for his mistreated animals.

Waltz is great at playing a bad guy. He won an Oscar as the famous Jew-hunting Nazi in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds”. But at least that was an entertaining performance. His circus owner character is a conventional bad-guy cliché with a strangely unmemorable performance. I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to be rooting for in “Water For Elephants”. At one point I actually wanted Witherspoon to stay with Waltz, which only shows how dull the Pattinson character is.

The story unfolds in flashback with “Titanic”-style bookends in which Hal Holbrook plays the older Pattinson telling his story to a young circus owner. Four minutes into the film is where Lawrence makes his biggest mistake. Holbrook’s voiceover narration begins telling the story, but soon morphs into Pattinson’s death-like narration. Hal Holbrook is a world-class voiceover artist. Since he was the voice of Deep Throat in 1976’s “All The President’s Men”, his voice has been heard in numerous movies and TV commercials. His voice is a class act. When you have Holbrook on a film, to replace his voice with Pattinson’s is idiotic. James Cameron didn’t replace Gloria Stuart’s voiceover with Kate Winslet. Perhaps Lawrence wasn’t paying attention.

But if you like these actors, “Water For Elephants” is a curious sideshow to their careers. The production design by Jack Fisk, and Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography make the film beautiful to look at. It’s not the biggest waste of two hours. But “Water For Elephants” will leave you thirsting for something more.

DVD Double Feature:
The fantasy and romantic possibilities of running off with a traveling circus were beautifully musicalized in the hit Broadway show “The Fantasticks”. One of Broadway’s longest-running hit musicals, it was finally filmed in 1995 with Joel Grey, Jean Louisa Kelly and Joe McIntyre of New Kids On The Block fame. The movie was barely released theatrically, but is available on DVD and well worth a look.