Having read a few reviews of this depression era set novel by Sara Gruen, I was apprehensive to see the film. The readers and critics had said it was too depressing and didn't end well. I'm happy to say the film is not bad at all. It captures the mood of the 1930s, and we the audience really get a sense of what it must have been like to live in that time in history. (Yes we went through our own depression but it was quite different and much more difficult back then.) The film centers around Jacob (Robert Pattinson) a student of veterinary science at Cornell, who gives up his education and runs away after his parents die in a car accident. He stumbles upon a traveling circus, where he is taken in by riff raffs and other stowaways. They have all become a part of the circus ensemble in order to make ends meet. Jacob eventually meets their ringleader August, played by Christolph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds) and his beautiful wife Marlena (Reese Witherspoon). August takes Jacob under his wing initially, but later Jacob learns his true colors. I do not wish to give away too much of the storyline but something tells me people will like this movie as much as the book if not more. I think the film makers have managed to make a film about the depression era without it being depressing. The film has an epic feel to it. It's, emotional, inspiring, romantic, and overall it makes for a very good drama. Even the ending is uplifting. The cast is wonderful as well. Robert Pattinson holds his own against two Oscar winners. It's great to see Reese Witherspoon back in action and in top form. There aren't enough great things I can say about Christoph Waltz. He balances the line between being dangerous and comedic with razor sharp precision, and is very intimidating…his performance is brilliant. It's great to see a film with real sets, and gritty and flawed characters, rather than imaginative CG rendered places and creatures. Even the train, (where a large part of the film takes place) feels alive with all its moving parts…it has a personality of its own. It's a surprising film from director Francis Lawrence whose previous films include "Constantine" and "I am Legend." It's clear that the team he works with has a great sense of capturing a story's mood, time, and place. "Water for Elephants" is a beautiful, moving, and entertaining film. Go see it! http://tickingticket.blogspot.com/

As a standalone feature the movie may have been successful, but as most movies these days go, the screenplay was adapted from the source material, and inevitably left out some key elements.

The largest of these omissions was combining Uncle Al and August into one character. I didn't understand the reasoning behind it, and a lot of drama is lost. Christoph Waltz is a capable actor, but's it's hard to convincingly play the man who's greed and desperation runs the circus into the ground, and the tortured, schizophrenic man who's rage and cruelty drives his wife and friends away.

Also I think that the entire theme of living during the late depression is largely glamorized and you never really sense how desperate the men are, and thus have a hard time believing the finale.

I was also saddened by what happened to Walter and Camel in the book, but unmoved in the movie... the friendship had no build-up... they disliked one another then they were BFF's.

The last omission was an understandable deviation from the book, but in it was so critical to the theme of the story that I missed it in the movie. I'm talking about the scenes in the nursing home where we see the shell of a man that Jacob became, and we're left feeling almost as helpless and depressed as him until he finally makes it to the circus in the end.

Hal Holbrook is an old man who runs to the circus and tells a tale of his younger days in depression era America.

Jacob Jankowski (Robert Pattinson) was studying to be a vet. His parents died in an accident and he could not continue his studies. Jacob gets a job in the Benzini Bros circus run by the volatile and sadistic August (Christoph Waltz) and he starts to treat the animals because of his veterinary skills.

When August acquires Rosie the elephant, August brutally mistreats her until Jacob realises that he elephant only understands commands in Polish, a language Jacob knows.

Jacob works with August's beautiful younger wife, Marlena (Reese Witherspoon) to train Rosie and both fall in love. However August suspects their affair and plans to throw Jacob off the train.

Water for Elephants is a handsomely mounted film but it is only a passable romance movie. There is an age gap between Pattinson and Witherspoon which does not make the romance smoulder. Waltz chews the scenery as the bad guy. Pattinson does well as the awkward, nervous young man but the character only shines when the Holbrook plays the older Jacob.