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Water for Elephants
In this captivating Depression-era melodrama, impetuous veterinary student Jacob Jankowski joins a celebrated circus as an animal caretaker but faces a wrenching dilemma when he's transfixed by angelic married performer Marlena.
2011 · Directed by Francis Lawrence · 122 min · Drama · Romance · Screenplay in the scene database · 10 frames
Tagline
Life is the most spectacular show on earth.
Plot
Circus owner Charlie O'Brien encounters an elderly man named Jacob Jankowski, who is separated from his nursing home group. Jacob reveals he once had a career in the circus business and was present during one of the most infamous circus disasters of all time.
In 1931, when Jacob is a 23-year-old veterinary medicine student taking his final exam at Cornell University, he learns that his parents were killed in a car accident. After the bank forecloses on the family home and in the midst of the Great Depression, he jumps onto a passing circus train.
Jacob meets Camel, an employee with the Benzini Bros., who agrees to help him obtain a job. He meets ringmaster August, who after learning of Jacob's veterinary background, hires him to care for the animals. Jacob meets August's wife, performer Marlena Rosenbluth, and informs her that their star show horse has laminitis.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Richard LaGravenese
- Cinematography: Rodrigo Prieto
- Edited by: Alan Edward Bell
- Music: James Newton Howard
- Production design: Jack Fisk
- Produced by: Gil Netter, Erwin Stoff, Andrew R. Tennenbaum
Cast
- Robert Pattinson as Jacob Jankowski
- Reese Witherspoon as Marlena Rosenbluth
- Christoph Waltz as August Rosenbluth
- Paul Schneider as Charlie
- Jim Norton as Camel
- Hal Holbrook as Old Jacob
- Donna W. Scott as Barbara
- Richard Brake as Grady
- Stephen Monroe Taylor as Wade
- Mark Povinelli as Kinko / Walter
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English, Polish
- Studios: Big Screen Productions, Fox 2000 Pictures, Dune Entertainment, Ingenious Media
- Budget: $38,000,000
- Box office: $117,094,902
- Themes: based on novel or book, elephant, clown, great depression, elephant trainer, veterinary, grand, appreciative, melodramatic
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