Water For Elephants: A Review
August 31st 2011 09:45
Water For Elephants: A Review
I watched the movie with audio only coming through my left headphone and the screen resolution of a Nokia circa 2000 handset. The funny thing is even with the lowest form of presentation; the message, meaning, emotion and story of Jacob Jankowski did not get lost on me.
No doubt the film has won numerous awards and garnered heaps of accolades and mentions in the industry. All I knew about the movie was it had real elephants in it, that the title wasn’t an abstract one and apparently the elephants used in the movie were in fact, abused in real life. That was the extent of my knowledge of the movie. I had thought that for some reason, Scarlett Johansson was in the movie but alas it was the lovely Reese Witherspoon, performing brilliantly as the movie’s anti-heroine, Rosy. The threesome is completed with August, Christoph Waltz, of Inglourious Basterds fame.
The film feels fast-paced but with dramatic scenes interlaced with teasers of love and emotion, it is as much an emotional rollercoaster as it is a visual flurry of activity. Most of the scenes are set in a moving train and the perception it gives the audience is a hurried and forward-looking one. The viewer is always led to think about the next stop or the next scene and whether adultery will happen in the next scene or in the current one.
Robert Pattinson is brilliant as Jacob Jankowski, a smart but down-in-luck young adult at the cusp of America’s Great Depression. His performance is natural, watchable but leaves nothing special in my mind. The costume, cinematography and storyline all help in telling the story as much as the acting itself. There is really, nothing to shout about, in terms of individual performances. Reese Witherspoon as Rosy is also commendable but yet forgettable. Perhaps therein lies the beauty of the whole movie itself – the fact that that no one person stars in the movie but little bits of everyone’s work conglomerates in this wonderful masterpiece of film. Christoph Waltz is inspirational as his usual-cast charater: angry, manipulative, kind and scheming all at the same time. If I would choose the best actor/actress of the movie, it would be Waltz for sure. However, how much of my judgement is due to his performance and not the script, begs to be determined.
If you can’t already tell, I love the movie. It will go down as one of my favourites for a long time. Not sure about you but for me, I don’t really have a favourite movie when people ask me that question. But for at least the next 6 months, I foresee myself blurbing out these three words the next time someone asks, “Water For Elephants.”
4.5 out of 5 stars.
DM
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