Animal magic?
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
Director: Francis Lawrence
Cert: 12A
Running time: 120 minutes
In 1930s America, during the Great Depression, promising veterinary student Jacob Jankowski’s (Robert Pattinson) parents die just before his final exam. Left without a family, home or formal qualifications, he jumps on board a train belonging to a travelling circus, which he joins as their vet.
He then falls in love with Marlena (Reese Witherspoon), the circus’s star attraction and wife of the cruel, charismatic, capricious ringmaster August (the brilliant Christoph Waltz), whose harsh treatment of his circus animals carries over to people as well, often ‘red-lining’ inconvenient employees (which is to say, having them thrown off a moving train).
August is a great illustration of the Proverbs verse: ‘A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel’. (Though the other characters who show concern for animals are nevertheless sinful in other ways.) August worships success, or perhaps showmanship. Driven by the fear of failure, he calls the elephant that will form part of their new act ‘our salvation’. He also extols champagne, which ‘washes away all our sins’.
Compassion
Bonding over their mutual love of animals and their compassionate natures in general, Marlena reciprocates Jacob’s feelings, but they make an effort to show self-restraint as August’s jealous nature simmers under the surface.
The nuanced characterisation lends admirable complexity to what could otherwise have been a straightforward (and wrong) love triangle storyline of ‘husband is bad so adultery is okay’.
However, the ending arguably drops the ball in this respect, effectively reducing the story to those terms. And, seemingly, on one level sin is punished, but on another level sin is rewarded.
The film evokes a fantastical, almost magical atmosphere (like The Legend of Bagger Vance and Peter Jackson’s King Kong), in keeping with the theme, expounded by August, that ‘Everything is illusion’.
Sumptuously shot, dramatic, and sometimes thrilling, Water for Elephants is an artful, if ultimately flawed, exploration of themes such as fantasy, destiny, love, marriage, and adultery.
Content-wise, as well as the running theme of adultery (mostly emotional, though it’s consummated in one brief sex scene), there’s some violence towards both humans and animals.
