Big and Showy, Yes, But Something’s Definitely Missing

This is not a bad movie, “Water for Elephants.” It's just dull, often boring, and hugely predictable. You know you're in trouble when teenage girls who have come to worship heartthrob Robert Pattinson turn on their smartphones and begin texting, and you don't even care. Working from Sara Gruen’s best-selling novel — a work that managed to combine a young man’s coming-of-age story with a dangerous love affair, both set in a Depression era traveling circus where cruelty to men and animals was an everyday fact — screenwriter Richard LaGravenese (“The Horse Whisperer,” “The Bridges of Madison County”) has fashioned a formulaic adaptation which is directed by Francis Lawrence (“Constantine,” “I Am Legend”) in big, showy, often beautiful shots that make the Depression colorful, pastoral, almost lyrical but seldom interesting, much less compelling. Jacob (“Twilight” vampire Pattinson) loses both parents, Polish immigrants, on the day of his final exam at Cornell's veterinary school. Left with literally nothing but his clothes, he sets out on an odyssey without destination that eventually lands him in the Benzini Brothers’ Circus, a would-be rival to Ringling Brothers on the Depression era circus circuit. At Benzini, Jacob attracts the attention of owner August (Christoph Waltz, the Oscar winner from “Inglourious Basterds”) and his wife Marlena (Reese Witherspoon, another Oscar winner for “Walk the Line”), the show’s star attraction in her trained-horse act. Jacob is hired as the Benzini veterinarian, and he soon becomes the keeper of Rosie, an elephant purchased by August to partner Marlena in a new star act. But Rosie appears stubborn and won’t perform, even when beaten by August (in a nearly unwatchable scene), until Jacob gives her commands in Polish. (Who knew?) The circus is saved financially, but August grows jealous of Jacob, suspicious and then furiously dismissive of Marlena and allows his brutish, near-psychopathic behavior to destroy both his marriage and his circus. The climactic final scenes, which should have been frightening and apocalyptic, are merely melodramatic. While producers and casting agents must have salivated over Pattinson and Witherspoon, the two have no on-screen chemistry. Pattinson plays a callow boy, not a serious romantic figure and certainly not a rival to Waltz’s powerful, frightening husband. He smiles, looks perplexed and sincere. He runs the gamut of emotions “from A to B,” in Dorothy Parker's famous words. Witherspoon, in a Jean Harlow impersonation, is reliable but has little to do. And she just seems too old for Pattinson in a way I can’t explain. Waltz is very good in a role that reprises his suave, sadistic prize-winning Nazi. But where Quentin Tarantino gave him motivation, Gruen and LaGravenese keep shifting him from suave to cruel with little reason. Now Rosie the elephant is magnificent: mottled, enormous, seemingly all-knowing, faithful, protective, powerful yet gentle. And Hal Holbrook, at 85, is deeply touching as the aged Jacob who — in an obvious steal from “Titanic” — frames the beginning and ending of the movie. Ultimately the film fails to deliver the grit of nomadic circus life and the Depression itself: The roustabouts are clean and cheerful as they raise the big top; you almost expect them to burst into song like Welsh coal miners. Marlena totters out of a speakeasy and down a picturesque, perfectly lighted Hoboken alley with Manhattan skyscrapers framed against a dawning sky. August and Marlena “dress” for dinner each night in formal clothes. There's even an extra tux in Jacob’s size when he is invited to join them. What should have been inspired by Fellini’s “La Strada” is all DeMille’s “Greatest Show on Earth.” There is a real movie in the story, but it's not this one. “Water for Elephants” is rated PG-13 for language, brief sensuality, violence and scenes of cruelty to animals. It is playing at The Moviehouse in Millerton, NY, the Triplex in Great Barrington, MA, and elsewhere.