Water For Elephants: Drying Up Fans Expectations

By: Wyatt Lavoy

Summary:

Based off of the book by Sara Gruen, Water For Elephants is a love story starring Robert Pattinson, Reece Witherspoon, and Christopher Waltz. An older Jacob starts off by telling the story of how he became involved in the circus. Jacob Jancowski (Pattinson) has hit rock bottom. With only his final exam in the way of receiving his Cornell degree in vet science, he gets news that his parents have died and the bank own all of their possesions. With nothing to lose, he jumps on a train in hopes of going somewhere with work. Unknowingly to him, he jumps aboard a car of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show On Earth, owned by a paranoid schizophrenic August (Waltz) and his beautiful wife, Marlena (Witherspoon). Jacob is welcomed into the business as the shows vetrinarian. It's not long before Jacob falls in love with Marlena. As time goes on, the show buys an elephant named Rosie. When it seems like Rosie does not obey, August beats her. However, Jacob discovers that she knows Polish, and Rosie and Marlena become a hit. Then one night August and Jacob get into a fight when August slaps Marlena. The circus goes downhill from there. When the show collapses Jacob and Marlena run away and get married. The movie ends with the elderly Jacob rejoining the circus as a ticket seller.

Marlena

August

Jacob with Rosie

In Depth Analysis: The Plot

The plot of the movie for the most part stuck to that of the book, but the plot of the book is still better. The Plots differ in many ways. The movie plot leaves out details and goes over events too quickly. For people that have not read the book but saw the movie, more information is needed for the plot because it is not explained in the movie. Everything happens so fast in the movie and it could be hard to keep up for those that have not read the book first. The movie has a different order of events than the book. In the book, Marlena and Jacob stay at the cirus for three more weeks before the animals escape and the show collapses. It is better in the book because the movie rushes everything but the book builds more suspense and tensions. The movie also leaves out a key character from the book, Uncle Al. In the book, August works for uncle Al, who owns the circus, but in the movie, there is no Uncle Al and August is both characters put into one. It was better in the book to have Uncle Al because he is too important to leave out since he is the owner of the circus and makes all of the dicisions. Another way that the two differed was that in the book, the story is told by jumping back and forth between old Jacob and young Jacob, but in the movie, older Jacob is showed just at the beginning and at the end. However, this change is better because it would have been hard to do it that way for the movie. All in all, the plot to the movie stayed with the plot of the book, minus a couple of changes. Water for Elephants is a great story to read and to watch, but reading the book is better.