Water For Elephants ***

Francis Lawrence directed this Romance/Drama Watch Preview Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, Christoph Waltz, Hal Holbrook. Rated  PG-13 for moments of intense violence and sexual content. Running time is two hours.

A penniless and recently-orphaned veterinary school student (Pattinson), parlays his expertise with animals into a job with a second-rate traveling circus and falls in love with the wife (Witherspoon) of the charismatic but unbalanced circus boss (Waltz). Based on the novel by Sara Gruen.

Romance dramas are not high on my "must see" movie list because they're usually unrealistic and sappy. Still, as romance dramas go, this was better than expected. The love story has been well balanced with the circus drama, and the pacing keeps things moving right along. I found the time passed fairly quickly for a two hour film. I saw where many who had read the novel thought the film would receive an R but the sexual content is reasonably subdued and the violence is mostly implied and not visually dwelt upon. Witherspoon and Pattinson are fine in their roles but Waltz is clearly the best actor of the leads. Holbrook plays the older Pattinson role at the start and finish of the film. The target audience is women 18-49 so this should make a good date movie.