Water for Elephants will be available on DVD and Blu-Ray November 1st. We were grateful to get an advanced copy for review from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Here is our review of the DVD* version and bonus features:
Synopsis (from Twentieth Century Fox): Water for Elephants stars Academy Award®-winner Reese Witherspoon (Walk The Line), Robert Pattinson (Twilight series) and Oscar®-winner Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds).
Devastated by the sudden death of his parents at the height of The Depression, a young dreamer from the wrong side of the tracks, Jacob Jankowski (Pattinson), abandons his veterinary studies at Cornell University. With no other family, no house, and no money, Jacob stows away on a train carrying the circus performers of The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Hired as a veterinarian to care for the troupe’s animals, Jacob is temporarily filled with the promise of an exciting life that comes with a traveling circus troupe. However, as he builds a rapport and falls in love with the star of the show, Marlena (Witherspoon), they become prey to the circus’s owner, Marlena’s violent and abusive husband August (Waltz). As the circus begins to crumble from within and against all odds, Jacob and Marlena come together and fall in love through their compassion for a special elephant. With their love on the line, Jacob and Marlena come to a crossroads that will forever change their destiny.
Bonus Features: The DVD has three features, soundtrack commentary and the theatrical trailer.
The Traveling Show: Page to Screen- This is your basic “making of” featurette with interviews of the cast and crew, including Director Francis Lawrence, Producer Andrew Tennenbaum, Screenwriter Richard LaGravenese, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson and Christoph Waltz. The piece opens with an interview with “Water for Elephants” author Sara Gruen talking about where she drew her inspiration from to write the book. She has a cameo in the movie, so look for her when Rosie the elephant takes a walk downtown.
Robert Pattinson Spotlight- Nice featurette on Rob with the cast and crew talking about working with him. Director Francis Lawrence reveals that he didn’t know much about Rob beyond the Twilight movies before he met him and that he was unsure what to expect. He later reveals that he was such a good fit for the part that they wove parts of Rob’s personality and sense of wonder into the character of Jacob Jankowski. Screenwriter Richard LaGravenese was impressed with his acting, saying that he becomes a leading man in this film. We also hear from Producer Andrew Tennenbaum and Reese Witherspoon.
Feature Performer: Reese Witherspoon- Interesting little piece on Reese and how she trained for several months so she could do all her own stunts in the movie. Sebastian Stella, the circus choreographer, talks about working with Reese to get her showtime ready for the film.
Audio Commentary with Director Francis Lawrence and Writer Richard LaGravenese- Perhaps we have been spoiled from viewings of Rob’s previous movies with the commentary track turned on listening to him, but we had hoped for a commentary track featuring Rob with either Reese or Francis Lawrence. As soon as the commentary track starts though, we are sucked right into what they have to say. Francis Lawrence and Richard LaGravenese are funny, entertaining and provide fascinating background and detail to the making of the movie. One interesting tidbit is that in order to turn a book that takes 14 hours to read into a two hour movie, they had to remove a lot of the nursing home scenes at the end of the book and turn them into bookends for the movie with Jacob Jankowski telling the story full circle. Another interesting fact, they had originally planned on having Hal Holbrooke do the voiceover for the entire movie, but decided that they wanted Rob to do the voiceover in the middle for his character so that the audience could better connect with him. There are many more bits of trivia, behind-the-scenes insights and stories about the making of the movie that make this commentary well worth the listen.
Theatrical Trailer- It’s nice to see the trailer included on the DVD. A lot of current DVD releases do not include the theatrical trailer. The trailer gave us shivers the first time we saw it during American Idol – it caused much the same reaction this time. Beautifully shot, emotional and exciting…just enough of a tease to make you want to watch the movie again.
Overall, this is a solid DVD with just the right amount of bonus features, although we wanted a commentary with Rob and some deleted scenes (old Jacob seeing an elephant again would have been a wonderful scene), Water for Elephants was still a delightful watch!
*Special note: The Blu-Ray version has a lot more extra features, which we have listed out below-
Feature Film
Special Features-
Robert Pattinson Spotlight
Feature Performer Reese Witherspoon
The Traveling Show: From Page to Screen
Working Without A Net – The Visual Effects of Water for Elephants
The Star Attraction
Raising the Tent
Secrets of the Big Top
Audio Commentary with Director Francis Lawrence and Writer Richard LaGravenese
Theatrical Trailer
Live Extras-
Exclusive: Stars of the Circus
Blu-ray Highlight: The Traveling Show: From Page to Screen
Theatrical Trailer
Live Lookup
Digital Copy
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