First Hit: One great performance in a mediocre film.
Jacob (played by Robert Pattinson) is a depression child (although his character didn’t experience it) following in his father’s footsteps as a Doctor of Veterinary Science.
We see him just about ready to take his final exam and the voice over tells us he’s going to have sex with someone in the class. Not sure why this is important except to say he’s ready to start his new life after the exam.
However, before he can put pencil to paper, he is called out of class and learns that his parents have just died in an auto accident. Settling their affairs, he finds out that the house is no longer his because his parents mortgaged it to pay for his schooling. He is, in fact, broke and homeless like the tens of thousands of others of this time period.
While walking down a railroad track a train comes so he hops it only to quickly find out that it is a traveling circus train. The circus is run by August (played by Christoph Waltz) who is married to the main attraction Marlena (played by Reese Witherspoon).
Her main act is to ride and demonstrate elegance and control over her horses in the center ring. She is far younger than her husband whom she met when he found her on the streets of a small town. She didn't know her parents and had lived in foster homes all her life. He offered her a different kind of life and home with a family of other societal misfits.
When Jacob meets Marlena she is working with her lead horse who has a leg problem. Jacob quickly diagnoses the ailing horse and takes the risk of putting it out of its misery. August both punishes and rewards Jacob for the efforts because the horse was the star attraction and he had enough conviction to do what was right.
To create a new crowd pleasing and money making act, August buys an elephant named Rosie. August tells Jacob that he is in-charge of Rosie and must train it to be the money making attraction the circus needs to stay in business. August tells him he needs this act to be great because, his circus will otherwise go bankrupt (like others of his time) and they will all perish.
Jacob is kind in his training of Rosie but little progress is being made with the training, so August takes this task into his own hands by telling Jacob he must make Rosie know who is boss. August goes into Rosie’s rail car and beats the elephant bloody. This makes Marlena and Jacob sick, unites them in their cause to treat the elephant kindly, and also emotionally brings together as a couple.
I won’t share more of the story but to say that it has a Hollywood story type ending.
Pattinson is ill suited for this part. His moody (James Dean spin off) presence and good looks (to young girls that want to make his moodiness go away) may work for “The Twilight” series of films but here it is a distraction. Witherspoon, doesn’t fare much better. There isn’t much to make me believe her background and why she married August. The chemistry between Pattinson and Witherspoon was minimal and it showed in their scenes. Waltz was the star and the great performance of this film. From his opening scene, till the end he was a man of great contradictions of passion and manic anger. His whole face and especially his eyes kept me totally on edge in every scene thinking “how would this scene end?” When he is on the screen, he’s the one you watch. Hal Holbrook plays the senior Jacob and it is always great to see and hear his intelligent acting. Richard LaGravenese wrote the screenplay which was pretty good. Francis Lawrence directed this and leaving the theater it felt like a lot of great possibilities were left on the table.
Overall: This film was a great disappointment but might be OK to view on video with nothing else to do on a Sunday afternoon.