Water for Elephants

3.5 stars out of 5

Sara Gruen's novel, of which I had not heard before this movie came out, is now scooting up the New York Times best-seller list thanks to the film of it that director  Francis Lawrence made out of writer Richard LaGravenese's script. Film is a collaborative medium, of course, so we'll never really know what it would have been like if Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon weren't the leads, (and the inimitable Hal Holbrook did not have a small but crucial cameo). It is the story of a boy whose life is ruined by the death of his parents, and who ends up joining the circus, a world which is, it seems, in terms surface-glamorous but rotten, violent and unpredictable underneath. It is very straightforward dramatic story telling. No art, no big issues to think about, just good looking people making you wonder what will happen next. The movie did not make me want to read the novel, or even see the movie again, but, unlike so many films, at least I wasn't unhappy at myself for going in the first place.