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199. Water For Elephants


I didn't quite manage to reach my double ton today but I was thrust within touching distance by my third appearance at Nottingham Cineworld in nine hours.
And tonight we finally caught up on Francis Lawrence's drama, based in 1930's America.
Actually, it starts in the modern day with 86-year-old Hal Holbrook reminiscing of his time in the circus when he was a young thruster.
Has he turns all dewy-eyed he morphs into Robert Pattinson and the story really begins.
Pattison plays the young Jacob Jankowski whose parents die in a car crash.
He decides to leave town to make his fortune and stows away on a train which happens to be carrying the circus.
The story then moves on to his relationship with the ringmaster (Christoph Waltz) and his beautiful wife (Reese Witherspoon).
Waltz is really making his name in Hollywood since his Oscar win for Inglorious Basterds.
Previous to that he had appeared mainly in German-language movies. Now he is a real A-lister.
Here his performance as the near psychopathic circus leader is truly compelling. His evil is almost tangible and  he steals the limelight from two of the biggest names around today.
Pattinson is obviously huge because of Twilight but he is not a one-trick pony and gives empathy to Jacob.
Meanwhile, Witherspoon's on-screen vulnerability is entirely believable.
But what really makes Water For Elephants are the beautiful 1930s sets and the incredible scenes with the huge pachyderm.
The elephant in question is actually a beast called Tai, who is apparently 45 years old and has appeared in 24 films.
Water For Elephants (I really don't understand the title) was certainly a decent hit with Mrs W who proclaimed how much she had enjoyed it as we came away from the cinema.
My main beef was with the storyline - I could just see what was coming from a mile away.
But that said, the performance of Waltz, the beauty of the movie and the hero elephant earn it 7.5/10




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