I was not expecting to see this movie, but had the opportunity to watch it last night, and enjoyed it. Having heard of the movie, but not really knowing anything about it, I admittedly did not know what to expect. I had heard it is a good movie, and that intrigued me enough.
The movie opens in he pouring rain, with an old man seemingly standing dazed and confused, not sure of what he is doing or where he is going. This ends up being the old Jacob Jankowski, played well by Hal Holbrook, who I personally remember best from his more extended and very impressive role in Into the Wild. This old man is taken inside of a trailer by the circus workers, and when he begins to explain who he is and what relation he himself had to the circus, one of the men becomes intrigued enough to ask the old man his story, and so the main part of the movie begins.
Robert Pattinson plays the young Jacob Jankowski, a young man preparing for a final exam, and on the verge of graduating as a veteran from a prestigious Ivy League college. But just as he is about to begin the exam, he receives the horrendous news of an accident that has taken his parents from him, and left him with no money and no seeming future. He decides on the spur of the moment to go on the road and mold a new destiny for himself. These are hard times, as the story takes place during the days of the Great Depression, and having no money or future in the home that he had always lived in previously, but which is now owned by someone else against his will, Jacob decides to just find himself a new life.
While walking along railroad tracks, he gets the opportunity to jump onto a train that, as it turns out, happens to be a traveling circus show, and he eventually gets the opportunity to meet August, the circus director, and to stay on as the circus vetinarian, despite having to trick his way to the job, not having actualy completed his degree as a vet.
Christoph Waltz, who played the lead renegade Nazi character in Inglorious Basterds(the one that gets his forehead carved with a swastika at the very end of the movie), plays a kind of bad guy role once again in this one, although there are also some likeable traits to this character (at least at first). But his character, August, grows more and more out of control as the movie progresses, and despite being the circus director and thus, surrounded by animals all of the time, it becomes clear that he really should not be around animals (or perhaps even people). Somehow, Waltz seems to be very natural and effective in these more disturbing roles.
His wife Marlena, played very nicely be Reese Witherspoon, is the drop dead gorgeous blonde that never talks to anyone but August, until Jacob walks into her life. He falls in love at first sight, and eventually, melts her reluctance to get closer to him. Of course, this causes the tension that drives the rest of the movie until it reaches it's conclusion.
This movie is, overall, quite enjoyable. It blends te kind of fascination that we seem to have with the days of the Great Depression nowadays (I wonder if this fascination is tied in with the current dire economic climate that much of the world seems to find itself in presently),with a young and forbidden romance, all in the backdrop of a circus atmosphere (literally, this time). You get to catch close-up glimpses of a circus in action, which itself is quite intriguing. All in all, this is a good movie to see, if the opportunity presents itself. Recommended!
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