Water for Elephants is Francis Lawrence‘ adaptation of Sara Gruen‘s book, starring Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon, Christoph Waltz and Hal Holbrook. (And about 30 seconds of James Frain, which is so not enough.)

Plot:
After the death of his parents, Jacob (Robert Pattinson) quits his study of veterinary medicine and hits the road. By chance he ends up with a circus, where he is quickly hired by director August (Christoph Waltz) who can see Jacob’s use as a resident vet. August’s wife Marlena (Reese Witherspoon) takes a liking to Jacob – and Jacob to her. When they both start working on an elephant number for the show things soon get heavier and August’s abuse shows more and more. This can only end in drama.

Water for Elephants could have been great entertainment, either as the schmaltzy kitschfest it aspires to be or as the deliciously bad comedy Robert Pattinson movies tend to be. Instead it lands smack-dab in the middle of boring. Everything is terribly mediocre, apart from a few moments where it’s really bad, which is a welcome change. At least the alcohol helped [yeah, it was one of those movies]. And the elephant is cute.

In the first few minutes, when old!Jacob (Hal Holbrook) starts telling this story, I just thought, “I’ve seen this film! In the end, the ship sinks and they throw a jewel into the sea!” Fortunately they kept this framing to a minimum, though I still thought that it was generally unnecessary. Unfortunately that’s not where the Titanic parallels end – and Titanic really did it that much better…

And Water for Elephants could have honestly been a decent kitsch film. The cast isn’t bad: Robert Pattinson might not be the greatest actor on earth, but he is ok. Reese Witherspoon is talented (though in this film she obviously wasn’t motivated to do much of anything) as is Christoph Waltz (who soon noticed that nothing much was expected of him than to stand there and be creepy which is what he did, and with gusto).

The story isn’t bad even if you have to be very careful not to slip on the schmaltz and break your neck. There’s the added magic of the circus and an elephant. And yet, the story never really gets off the ground, you don’t care in the slightest about what happens to the characters and the only time there was a really emotional reaction in the audience was when August hits the elephant.

There are some moments that worked in the “so bad it’s good” category: That the elephant only speaks Polish was brilliant. And the dialogue line “you’re a beautiful person and you deserve a beautiful life” makes me want to barf, though I’m not sure if from laughter or from the corniness. But these moments were too few to make the whole film really bearable.

Summarising: Skip it. It’s not worth it.