Water for Elephants Released 4 May 2011 Director Francis Lawrence Starring Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, Christoph Waltz, Hal Holbrook, Paul Schneider, Jim Norton Writer(s) Richard LaGravenese Producer(s) Gil Netter, Erwin Stoff Origin United States Running Time 121 minutes Genre Drama Rating 12A

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Titantic in a Big Top.

After making teenage girls swoon in the Twilight films, Hollywood Studios have decided that English actor Robert Pattinson is to be the next big star. They already cast him in Remember Me alongside Pierce Brosnan. That was to showcase his ability to be a moody, angry young man, although it didn’t do much at the box office. So now they’ve cast him in a proper movie, a big romantic epic based on a best selling book. That’s gotta work, right?

Based on the novel of the same name by Sara Gruen, this film begins in the modern day when an old man called Jacob (Hal Holbrook) is found seemingly lost in the car park of a circus. While the security man (Paul Schnieder) tries to contact the old man’s care home, he mentions that he was with the Benzini Brothers back in 1931. The security man is astonished as apparently this was one of the great circus disasters in American history (don’t look it up on Wikipedia, it’s completely made up).

So Holbrook begins to tell his story and we flashback to the Great Depression in 1931. However in a blink of an eye Pattinson’s voice replaces Holbrook’s. So Pattinson is effectively narrating his own life story as he actually lives it. Perhaps at the test screenings the tweenies didn’t react well to having an old man talk over their lovely Robert’s face.

A young Jacob is just about to qualify as a vet but his world is turned upside down when his parents are killed in a car crash, leaving him homeless. Destitute and lost, he jumps a train that just happens to be a travelling circus. An old member of the crew (Jim Norton) takes pity on him and arranges for him to get a job as a lowly stagehand.

However after a chance meeting with the star performer Marlena (Reese Witherspoon), he uses his veterinary skills to notice a problem with one of her horses. This impresses August (Christoph Waltz), the owner of the circus and Marlena’s husband and he’s taken on as the vet for the operation. However he soon finds out that August runs his circus like a tyrant, quite willing to throw men off the moving train rather than pay them.

In the tough economic climate, August decides he needs to get a major attraction in to draw the crowds and so he invests all his money in an elephant. Jacob is put in charge of training the elephant but when it’s unresponsive August beats it savagely. Things are further complicated by the growing attraction between Marlena and Jacob, which is dangerous for both of them.

They’re very much going for a Titanic vibe here with Pattinson, Witherspoon and Waltz in the respective roles played by Leonardo Di Caprio, Kate Winslet and Billy Zane. But at least in James Cameron’s film, once you sat through all the melodrama you had a good hour of spectacular special effects at the end. In this film the ‘disaster’ is pretty under-whelming by comparison, more of an unfortunate kerfuffle really.

In terms of the performances Waltz brings some surprising depth to what could have been a stock villain and there’s solid support from Irish veteran Norton (Bishop Len Brennan from Father Ted). But the film is badly let down by the performances of the two leads. There is simply no chemistry between Witherspoon and Pattinson and you find yourself wondering why two people that are so dull are attracted to each other and why we should care.

It’s a shame, because there is the hint of an interesting story here in how circuses of the time were run as mini fiefdoms, but that’s all put aside to focus on a stock love triangle story. It’s achingly dull stuff and you find yourself impatiently waiting for the big disaster to arrive although unfortunately it never really happens.

Pattinson may well become a big star and the undoubtedly talented Witherspoon will hopefully start to pick better roles for herself but this dull, trite borefest will be relegated to the back of their CVs.

- Jim O’Connor