'The Childhood of a Leader' Reviews

Spoiler Alert

ScreenDaily

(...)

A striking, impressionistically filmed final sequence set some time in the future doesn’t so much answer these questions as pose new ones. Here Walker’s full orchestral soundtrack rises to a deafening pitch, mixing brass punches and string-section yelps into its driving, jackboot march. In combination with British DoP Lol Crawley’s atmospheric 35mm photography and Corbet’s assured direction of an excellent cast, it makes for an edgy, poetic mix with the dramatic potency of a good nightmare.

'Life' Berlinale Promo - Index Post

'Life' Reviews 
"Robert Pattinson impresses in this stylish drama about the relationship between celebrity and the media."

'Life' Reviews

'Life' had its first official screening at Berlinale and these are some of the reactions to Robert's performance in the film.

Please keep in mind that reviews can contain spoilers.

Reviews

Gone with the Movies

"For Robert Pattinson, his take on iconic photographer Dennis Stock is equally as impressive as he enters the world of Hollywood from the other side of the carpet (and at bottom). Spotting Dean's talent early, Stock, in the two-hour running time attempts to get photographs of Dean before fame kicks in. Deadlines, pressure and awkwardness soon mount-up, and Pattinson expertly presents it onto screen."


Little White Lies

"Robert Pattinson impresses in this stylish drama about the relationship between celebrity and the media."

"An intense mob formed around the Berlinale press screening of Anton Corbijn's Life — such is the continued allure of Robert Pattinson. His fans beyond the festival will be pleased to hear that his brittle performance as LIFE magazine photographer, Dennis Stock, outshines Dane DeHaan's over-baked rendering of James Dean, although the latter is poignant enough to enliven this tale of men helping each other to take a leap into greatness."

(...)

"Pattinson's performance is as crisp as the white shirt and black suits his character always wears. This is a camouflage for his own problems that slowly unfurl, adding colour and improving the film."

(...)

"Pattinson steps up, allowing more of his character's insides to come out. As Life proceeds the pace picks up and by the third act, it is a compelling dramatisation of an artistically fascinating alliance."

'Queen of the Desert' Reviews

'Queen of the Desert' had it's first official screening at Berlinale and these are some of the reactions to Robert's performance in the film.

Please keep in mind that reviews can contain spoilers. 

Reviews

Variety

(...)

"At the next stop on her travels, she encounters a young T.E. Lawrence (a consternated-looking Robert Pattinson, who, like Franco, elicited laughs in Berlin when he first appeared onscreen). Though she clearly makes a strong impression on every man she meets, he surprises her by asking, “Gertie, will you please not marry me?”"

The Hollywood Reporter

"The brief but significant appearances of Robert Pattinson as T.E. Lawrence aside..."

(...)

"Among the more entertaining interludes is her time spent at an archeological dig with Lawrence. And while Pattinson in Arab headgear takes some getting used to (and drew laughs at the Berlin press screening), the easy camaraderie in his scenes with Kidman is appealing. "

New Rob Interview With Metro UK

Directors fawn over him. Girls scream for him. But Robert Pattinson can do without the A-list treatment – at least judging by the shoot for his new film, The Rover, a post-apocalyptic thriller he is starring in alongside Guy Pearce.

Shot in the Australian desert, there were no 30ft trailers and no five-star catering. ‘I was quite content to live off bread and barbecue sauce for two and a half months,’ he says. No, this wasn’t a new form of wacky diet, Pattinson just didn’t want food poisoning.

‘There were so many flies there… and I just didn’t want to eat fly s***.’

Thankfully, R-Patz has lived to tell the tale. Today we meet in the rather more salubrious surroundings of a posh London hotel. Dressed in denim, with stubble sprouting across his chin, he’s come equipped with sunglasses and a baseball cap, the two essential tools for evading prying eyes.

The previous day he promoted The Rover at London’s BFI Southbank. ‘90 per cent of the people outside were autograph sellers,’ he says. ‘I’m like: “You know these things aren’t worth anything.” I’ve signed so many.’

It’s a typically modest answer from Barnes-born Pattinson, whose career was launched playing Edward Cullen in Twilight but who seems uncomfortable with the fame it brought. The 28-year-old knows how much the vampire saga has overshadowed him.

‘People who’ve only seen Twilight… I don’t know what they think I am,’ he sighs. What he wants is credibility.

'The Rover' in Empire Magazine (Australia) - Set Report & New Interview

Empire Magazine Australia has a ten page spread on The Rover. It features a set report, new interviews with Rob, Guy and the crew and a few new stills.
ETA: Transcript of Rob's interview and Guy's comments about Rob under the scans

Set Report + Interviews

First 'Maps To The Stars' Reviews + Media Reactions

'Maps To The Stars' just had it's screening at Cannes and the first reviews and reactions are in!

Please keep in mind that reviews can contain spoilers. Click on the links to read the full reviews.



Reviews
The Wrap

His Cannes entry, “Maps to the Stars,” returns in a way to territory Cronenberg explored in “Dead Ringers,” and it's probably the director's best film in at least a decade. Here, working with the talented literary satirist of Hollywood culture, Bruce Wagner, Cronenberg has hit his stride in a big way. He nails our celebrity-obsessed culture, and the sickness it breeds, right to the wall

(...)

Cusack is appropriately creepy as the father, and Williams is solid. To say any more about them is really to spoil things. Robert Pattinson has a small part, but gets a love scene, of course, to satisfy his fans. Pattinson and Cronenberg are developing a nice collaboration, however, and here's to hoping we get to see more from the two of them.

The Playlist

The director's also been gifted a cracking cast for the material. Before you ask: no, Robert Pattinson isn't in it all that much (his role could argue be lifted from the film without too much problem), but yes, he's pretty good in it. Plus you get to see him as a sort of glam-rock version of Khan from "Star Trek," so there's that. Olivia Williams' role is similarly underwritten, but she does find new texture to the kind of ice maiden that she's riffed on before.

(...)

But on the whole, the film is a sickly enjoyable wallow in the scandalous, fucked-up side of showbusiness, and a real return to form for the filmmaker. If nothing else, it'll rid you of any last desire to go on an actual LA star tour, and that alone is something to be thankful for.

First 'The Rover' Reviews + Media Reactions

The first 'The Rover' reviews are in and they are GOOD! We are so proud of Rob, Guy, David and everyone behind The Rover.
Here are some of the reviews from critics that attended the press screening at Cannes and twitter reactions (at the bottom of the post).

Please keep in mind that reviews can contain spoilers and although overall positive reactions, the movie won't please everyone.
Click on the links to read the full reviews.

Variety

Pearce is fiercely impressive here as a man who gave up on the human race even before the latest round of calamities, and if there are occasional glimpses of the kinder, gentler man he might once have been, we are more frequently privy to his savage survival instincts. But it’s Pattinson who turns out to be the film’s greatest surprise, sporting a convincing Southern accent and bringing an understated dignity to a role that might easily have been milked for cheap sentimental effects. With his slurry drawl and wide-eyed, lap-dog stare, Rey initially suggests a latter-day Lennie Small, but he isn’t so much developmentally disabled as socially regressed — an overprotected mama’s boy suddenly cast to the wolves — and Pattinson never forces or overdoes anything, building up an empathy for the character that’s entirely earned. He becomes an oasis of humanity in this stark, forsaken land.

The Hollywood Reporter

Pattinson delivers a performance that, despite the character’s own limitations, becomes more interesting as the film moves along, suggesting that the young actor might indeed be capable of offbeat character work. But always commanding attention at the film’s center is Pearce, who, under a taciturn demeanor, gives Eric all the cold-hearted remorselessness of a classic Western or film noir anti-hero who refuses to die before exacting vengeance for an unpardonable crime.

'Cosmopolis' Reviews

We'll keep updating this post. Click on the links to read the full reviews

Please note that reviews can contain spoilers!


The Playlist (A)

It’s fitting that Pattinson, today’s It boy, plays Packer, considering who Cronenberg’s Packer is. As a former start-up wunderkind, the 28 year-old Packer is comically death-obsessed. “We die every day,” he risibly exclaims to one of his sizeable retinue of advisors. Packer gets daily check-ups from his doctors partly because he enjoys the routine of it but also because he’s looking for something to confirm his suspicions. He’s convinced he’s found that something when he’s told that his prostate is asymmetrical. It’s pretty funny to see Pattinson, being the young, pretty tabula rasa that he is, play Packer, a wheeler-dealer that used to be hot shit but is now unable to sleep because he fears that he’s no longer relevant.

(...)

At the same time, Cronenberg doesn’t slim down DeLillo’s simultaneously sprawling and precisely dense narrative as much as he carves his own flourishes onto it. A couple of scenes, including Packer’s interest in bidding on a chapel full of art, and his visit to a night club full of drug-fueled ravers, are only necessary to establish a uniform pace to Cronenberg’s narrative. But in that sense, these scenes are just as essential as the ones where Kinski and Torval give Packer advice. Everything matters in Cronenberg’s "Cosmopolis," but not everything is necessarily the same as DeLillo’s book. And that makes the film, as a series of discussions about inter-related money-minded contradictions, insanely rich and maddeningly complex. We can’t wait to rewatch it. [A]

Empire Online

The stylised nature of the language will limit this film's appeal, and its self-conscious craziness might also be testing to some (why does the professional barber Eric finally visits cut huge steps in his hair?). And after Water For Elephants it remains to be seen whether Pattinson's teen following really is willing to follow him anywhere. But Cosmopolis does prove that he has the chops, and he parlays his cult persona beautifully into the spoiled, demanding Packer, a man so controlling and ruthless that only he has the power to ruin himself. Lean and spiky – with his clean white shirt he resembles a groomed Sid Vicious – Pattinson nails a difficult part almost perfectly, recalling those great words of advice from West Side Story: You wanna live in this crazy world? Play it cool.

Clemenceau reviews Cosmopolis in his Weekly Web Magazine

Starts at 2:27

Last movie I saw this week, Cosmopolis by David Cronenberg.
The story: It's one day in the life of Eric Packer, golden boy in need of a haircut when things go off the deep end.
I loved it! Hats off to Robert Pattinson's performance, who's really good. And I wasn't a big fan before.
It has everything we like: money, sex, death, desire, power, war and goat cheese.
The film is hot and the dialogues are completely crazy. The dialogues are from Don DeLillo's novel, seeing as the movie is an adaptation of his book.
Last thing is Mathieu Amalric's acting (I'm a big fan) and Juliette Binoche who are in the movie and simply amazing.
I gave it 4 out of 5 points. It's a really great movie that I warmly recommend.

Rob on the cover of Les InRockuptibles - Talks Cosmopolis, New Projects and More

ETA: Just a correction on the translation - When Rob talks about his next movie with Cronenberg, he says it'll be David Cronenberg's first movie in the US, not France.

Rob is on the cover of Les InRockuptibles - Here the scans and translation of his interview (it's a really great one), Cronenberg's (just the parts where he mentions Rob) and the movie review.

Rob talks about 'Cosmopolis', 'Mission: Blacklist', 'The Band', working with Cronenberg again, music, going to Coachella, favorite authors and movies, the first Twilight movie. Must read



Rob's Interview



Translation

Interview with a vampire

Robert Pattinson grew fangs after the Twilight saga. He's bringing them out to portray a greedy golden boy for Cronenberg. Charming and honest, he welcomed us in Los Angeles. By Jacky Goldberg.

The interview took place on the last floor of the Soho House that overlooks Sunset Strip. It was on the patio of the private club where cameras and telephones were forbidden. He was without his press agent. He wore a three days beard, a cap, brown chino cloth pants, and a plaid shirt.

The interview lasted one hour.

You live in LA now?
RP: Yes, for a little while now. At first I didn't know what to do there and now when I'm far away I miss it. Even more than London where I grew up but that all my friends left. My family still lives there but they want to come here, same for my friends. It's crazy, all you need is to spend a day in LA to want to move in. *laughs*

The movie breaks away from your image of the proper young man molded by Twilight and the few films that you filmed since then. Did you realise that as you were filming?
RP: Of course. I'm scared of being typecast *he thinks for a moment* ... like most actors who starts for that matter: it's important to branch out very early on. That's the whole point. In fact, I got offered the lead in Cosmopolis on my last day of filming Breaking Dawn. Right at the moment when I thought I was scared of repeating myself and bam! Cronenberg is calling me! It's better than anything I could ever dream of. Now I'm curious to see how the movie is received.

On the contrary, restrict yourself to only independent movies and not doing blockbusters anymore, doesn't that scare you?
RP: Honestly, if I could only play movies like Cosmopolis, it would be amazing. But they're hard to get. To tell you the truth, I'm not really interested by being at the head of big movies. First, it's harder to do: you have 20 people to answer to - in Cosmopolis: just one.
Then, in general, there's one two possible roles in those movies: you're either a teenager who becomes a man, or a teenager who's completely screwed up. when you're barely twenty, it's okay, you're having fun, you discover an incredible world, girls worship you. But it can't last forever.

What did David Cronenberg tell you when he called you?
RP: My agent sent me the script over a year ago but at that time it was Colin Farrell who was attached to the project. I told myself: "Fuuuuuuck, this script rocks! Why can't I be offered something like that? And why do you send me the script if the role is already taken *laughs*?" And one year later, out of nowhere, David calls me: "Hey do you want to do this movie?" I was terrified! The script looked so complex to me. A year before I was dreaming of it and then I felt unable to make a decision. It took me one week to find the courage to call David back.

Did he explain to you why he chose you?
RP: No, never. he didn't even make me audition. When I asked him about it, he told me he had a feeling ... when I told him that I wasn't sure what the movie was about, he replied: "Me neither, we're going to find out together." This is why I'm really curious to see people's reaction, even more so than usual.

Were you familiar with David's work before?
RP: Yes, I saw almost all his movies.

A few reactions to 'Cosmopolis' from the French press

Scan from the newspaper Le Monde.

An actor is born - Télérama.

Unsettling - Studio Ciné Live

Pattinson is mind-blowing - Positif

Cronenberg chose Pattinson. A brilliant idea on both counts. - Les Inrockuptibles

Robert Pattinson reveals a depth more and more fascinating. - Première

source

David Cronenberg and Don DeLillo talk about Rob with Le Monde

Some quotes look familiar because they're asking the same questions, but looks like it's a new interview. They talk more about Rob.

Le Monde: This way of perceiving a script can suprise coming from an author so versed in genre movies?

David Cronenberg: It is often thought that the cinema is a visual art. I think that for me, it's a more complicated combination. For me, the heart of cinema is a face that talks. It's what we film the most. I heard someone say that the last 22 minutes of the movie - where's there is only Paul Giamatti and Robert Pattinson in a room - is like theater. I don't think so. In a play, you woudln't have wide shots, movements from the camera, change of lighting. This is cinema. Without close-ups, there's no cinema.

[...]

Le Monde: And Robert Pattinson?

DonDeLillo: The character he plays is really close to the one in the book. I haven't seen Twilight, but I impressed my two 13 years old nieces when I told them the British Robert Pattinson was going to play in a movie adapted from one of my books. They respect me now!

David Cronenberg: Casting is an occult art. It's a matter of intuition. There's objectives factors tho. The character is 28, he's american. We needed someone who would look that age and that could do a perfect American accent. The movie is partnership between France and Canada. Also, I could only use one American actor and for me, it was Paul Giamatti. I could get an English actor though.
Then of course, there's the presence of the actor, he has to be able to portray a complex, crual, brutal and almost vulgar character in a way. He has to be really sophisticated and vulnerable at the same time, naiive and childish. If only to make people believe that he's capable of accomplishing so much, he needs strength and charisma. Moreover, he's in every scene. It doesn't mean he has to be handsome bu he has to be nice enough to look at for an hour and a half. And to finish, he needs to have some kind of notoriety. When a movie cost some kind of budget, you need to be able to tease your financial partners. And with all these restrictions, the list of actors you need, gets shorter. I thought about Rob pretty early on.

ETA: Another quote from DeLillo - Repubblica (Italy) (via/via)

How did you feel to see Robert Pattinson, actor famous for having played a vampire in a literary creation of yours?

Don DeLillo: The character he portrays is very close to that of the novel. However, I’ve never seen Twilight and when I write I have in mind neither the film nor anyone who can interpret it. I just care that will be played by good actor

source | via |via

ETA: A Cosmopolis review from the French magazine Studio Ciné Live. They gave it 3 stars out of 5.

A Cronenberg as brilliant as he is firm.

Each in their own genre, David Cronenberg and Don DeLillo are silversmiths of fantastic, unhealthy and sometimes dark atmospheres. As well as of the science of language and characters in shambles and - let's not forget - of controversy.
It's then pretty obvious that one would end up adaptating the other's work. Cosmopolis is the ghostly and hypnotic story of a day in the life of a golden boy who is about to lose his empire because of the crisis, indifferent to the world that surrounds him. He's hypochondriac and schizophrenic. His long journey across a chaotic New York, rythmed by meetings with his wife, his mistresses and his employees, will lead him to a point of no return. In a perfect balanced cinematic movement, David Cronenberg decided to adapt to the letter the extremely rich prose of Don DeLillo. He filmed with an incredible ingenuity this stifling and unsetlling closed-door.
This preconception to stay faithful to the text of the author is amazing but not without any danger. Especially in the last part of the film, where one could definitely get lost in a verbal flood that becomes complex for the viewer and for Robert Pattinson - who was perfect until then - but seems, all of the sudden, not to be able to manage anything anymore.

As always with Cronenberg, there's no in between, no second place, no way out. Cosmopolis gets appreciated at full or not at all. Take it or leave it.

Thanks to rpattzrobertpattinson for the scan.

First 'Cosmopolis' Review - From Premiere FR

The Cosmopolis review is from Premiere Magazine's new issue - Rob's cover (new photoshoot and amazing interview)



Translation thanks to our Sonia :)

New York is on war footing. The President of the USA is passing through and demonstrations are threating to drown Manhattan in chaos. Eric Packer, 28 years old millionaire, doesn't care. No matter what happens, he will go get his haircut on the other side of town.

We're not going to lie, whether we like David Cronenberg's recent movies, we were seriously missing the filmmaker of Videodrome and Crash. Pop open the champagne because he's back in every shot of Cosmopolis. Even though he's adapting someone else's work, the Canadian filmmaker recognized his young/offsprings in the novel of DeLillo. The absurd and persistant odyssey of a young wolf in finance who parades collegues, mistresses and doctors in his high-tech limo. When he reaches his destination, he might be left with nothing (the Japanese currency threatens his waller, his wife is more and distant, it's getting unbearable.) but the answer of the question that haunts him, without being able to articulate it: Can the one who possesses everything still desire anything else?

Cronenberg made sure that all his obsessions punctuate his route, whether they are intellectual (the search for 'another' reality) or carnal/physical (another scene that will make people talk, Packer learns that his prostate asymmetrical). Enthroned in the back seat of his limousine Robert Pattinson reveals a deepness that gets more & more fascinating as his character gets closer to hittng rock bottom/gets closer to the abyss. The fear that surrenders his face in the last moments doesnt belong only to this anti-hero that arrived at the point of no return, but it's also the fear of an actor who tests his limits with an unsupected bravery. With a feverish and decadent ride in Hell, Cosmopolis proves that he's not done testing them.

Rob & 'Bel Ami' on BBC Film 2012 - Some new parts of Rob's on set interview

Parts of Rob's on set interview at 0:45 and 2:10



You can watch the review part of the show here starting at 2:45.

Source

'Bel Ami' Reviews

ETA: All 'Bel Ami' reviews are being added to this post. The newest ones are at the bottom of the post.

ETA2: A really great and must read article about the 'Bel Ami' reviews - click HERE (via @PageMackinley)

ETA3: Link for Bel Ami's page on Rotten Tomatoes

This will be the post for the Bel Ami reviews from critics at the 'Berlin Film Festival'.



Since most reviews are really long, here is just the link for them.

Indiewire - Thompson on Hollywood (Just a note about the March 2nd release date for the US - it's incorrect)

Screendaily

The Playlist

The Hollywood Reporter

Movieline

Variety

Cineuropa

Beames on Film

ETA: A few more revies from JDIFF, Glasgow Film Festival and press screenings

Total Film (posted earlier this month)

Sight and Sound (posted earlier this month)

The Movie Blog

Hayes at the Movies

Entertainment.ie

Eye for Film

The Skinny

Hey U Guys

What's on Stage

Daily Star

Mirror

MSN Movies

OK.co.uk

Digital Spy

Empire Online

The Bucks Herald

The Arts Desk

Guardian

Yahoo Movies

Birmingham Post

Cine Vue

Little White Lies

Financial Times

RTE TEN

The Telegraph

Prospect Magazine

DailyMail

Chronicle Live

Metro

Superstar Magazine

Average Film Reviews

This is Staffordshire

Entertainment Wise

Flick Filosopher

Birmingham Mail

Sun Online

Express.co.uk

Film 4

Sky Movies

View London

Scotsman

Time Out

Herald.ie

London Evening Standard

Independent

Breaking News.ie

Radio Times

Filmoria

DIY

Evening Telegraph

The Film Stage

First 'Bel Ami' Reviews Are In - 'Total Film' and 'Sight and Sound' Magazines

From 'Total Film' Magazine (3 stars) (Source/Via)



From Sight and Sound Magazine (Transcription)

Guy de Maupassant’s second novel, about an unprincipled cad who rises in Belle Epoque Parisian society using women as stepping stones, has often been adapted for the screen, most famously by Albert Lewin as The Private Affairs of Bel Ami in 1947, with George Sanders in the title role. Lewin, a cultured Francophile, did a handsome if over-wordy job, but at 41 Sanders was too old for the role, and the Hollywood censors, much to Lewin’s annoyance, imposed a moralistic ending in which the cad meets his deserts in a fatal duel. Hard to think of anything more out of keeping with Maupassant’s novel, which exudes the urbane cynicism for which the writer was famous.

The new version has no truck with such sanctimony. Rachel Bennette’s script offers a faithful rendition of the original, up to and including the ending with Georges Duroy (the amorously ambitious ‘Bel Ami’ of the title) relishing his triumph over the shallow, corrupt society that he at once despises and personifies. Although it is well-grounded in its period – Budapest locations convincingly impersonate 1890s Paris, and rampant French colonialism in North Africa provides a murky political backdrop – the film’s themes feel remarkably topical. An Arab country is invaded for ostensibly high-minded motives, political parties denounce each other’s policies while surreptiously adopting them, the press attacks the corruption from which it profits, and a young man of no discernable talent attains celebrity thanks to a pretty face and a plausible manner.

Joint directors Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod, here making their feature debut, are best known for their work with Cheek by Jowl, the avant garde theatre company they founded in 1981. If Bel Ami occasionally feels airless and overly art-directed that may partly reflect the period it’s set in, but also the directors’ over indulgence in facial close-ups. It’s almost as though they didn’t trust their actors to express emotions in mid-shot – the last thing you’d expect from theatre directors. This does Robert Pattinson as Bel Ami no favours, since in close up his face tends to lapse into the bovine, but at further remove he gives an alert amusedly insinuating performance. A scene where he plays tap with his soon-to-be lover Clothilde (Christina Ricci, appealingly kittenish) and her little daughter brings out the boyish charm that stands him in good stead with the Parisian ladies. Even so he is outpaced in the acting stakes by his trio of lovers, Ricci, Uma Thurman as his mentor and subsequently his wife, and Kristin Scott Thomas, touchingly vulnerable as his boss’s wife. As Thurman’s Madeleine notes, unwittingly setting Georges on his unscrupulous path to the top, in this seemingly male dominated society the really important people are the wives – and the same goes for the film.

London Evening Standard Writer Calls 'Bel Ami' Astonishing

A little blurb in the London Evening Standard from a few days ago that we missed and didn't post here. She calls the movie "astonishing".

Having made his name as Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe must now spend the years ahead stamping on his childhood image. He could take a lesson from Robert Pattinson, who appears in the astonishing new film Bel Ami, as the most charismatically repellent leading man I can recall. He makes Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses look like a puppy. In another piece of counter-casting, Kristin Scott Thomas plays a lovesick matron, humiliatingly scorned. It is an unsettling premise that a handsome young man can pick off the wives of powerful men. Newspaper proprietors and politicians will keep a much closer eye on their domestic arrangements after seeing this film.

Thanks to @sceletons for the heads up :)

Roger Ebert, Variety Reviews 'Water for Elephants' + More Reviews

Roger Ebert - Read the full review at the source - 3 stars

There's something endearingly old-fashioned about a love story involving a beautiful bareback rider and a kid who runs off to join the circus. What makes "Water for Elephants" more intriguing is a third character, reminding us why Christoph Waltz deserved his supporting actor Oscar for "Inglourious Basterds" (2009). He plays the circus owner, who is married to the bareback rider and keeps her and everyone else in his iron grip.

The story, based on the best-seller by Sara Gruen, is told as a flashback by an old man named Jacob (Hal Holbrook), who lost his parents in 1931, dropped out of Cornell University's veterinary school, hit the road and hopped a train that happened, wouldn't you know, to be a circus train. Played by Robert Pattinson as a youth, he is naive and excited, and his eyes fill with wonder as he sees the beautiful Marlena (Reese Witherspoon) on her white show horse. The owner August (Waltz) is prepared to throw him off the train until he learns young Jacob knows something about veterinary medicine.

In an age of prefabricated special effects and obviously phony spectacle, it's sort of old-fashioned (and a pleasure) to see a movie made of real people and plausible sets. The production designer, Jack Fisk, has created a believable one-ring circus here, and even the train itself has a personality. (August and Jacob spend an implausible amount of time walking or running on top of it, but never mind.)

The dynamic in the story depends on August's jealousy of Marlena, and her stubborn loyalty to their marriage contract. This is where Waltz makes his contribution. Shorter than Pattinson, indeed hardly taller than Witherspoon, he rules over everyone as a hard-bitten taskmaster whose easy charm conceals a cold inner core; it's the same dynamic he used as the merciless Nazi in "Inglourious Basterds." He's much given to offering champagne toasts with a knife hidden inside.

Variety - Adding full review for those that can't read Variety's site

In an extravagant gamble worthy of the fictional Benzini Brothers Circus itself, Fox gives Sara Gruen's grassroots bestseller "Water for Elephants" the glossy, big-budget treatment fans crave, counting on adult women -- plus a younger female contingent keen on seeing "Twilight" heartthrob Robert Pattinson paired with sweet-as-pie Reese Witherspoon -- to prop up a production with a cost apparently on par with a small tentpole. Unlike the story's colorful gang of roustabouts, who dismiss ticket buyers as "rubes," the filmmakers clearly value their public, crafting a splendid period swooner that delivers classic romance and an indelible insider's view of 1930s circus life.

A present-day prologue finds nursing-home escapee Jacob Jankowski (played with endearing mock surliness by Hal Holbrook) reminiscing about his tenure under the big top. Taken in by a young circus worker (Paul Schneider) and then encouraged to share his story, Jacob proceeds to explain how a family tragedy on the eve of vet-school exams spared the would-be Cornell grad a predictable life, and led to his hitching a ride with the Benzini Brothers' traveling show instead.

Transitioning smoothly back to the character's spring awakening, director Francis Lawrence suggests how robust and alive Jacob's memories have remained all these years, faithfully recreating the initial disorientation and awe the young Polish-American experienced upon first encountering the circus. Looking far more handsome than Holbrook ever did, Pattinson brings the same sullen sensitivity to 23-year-old Jacob that he has to the "Twilight" pics -- perfectly fitting for an overnight orphan so recently derailed from his intended life path.

A daisy-fresh college boy out of place among Camel (Jim Norton), Kinko (Mark Povinelli) and the other grizzled old drunks he meets aboard the Benzini Brothers boxcar, Jacob must instantly adjust to the show's elaborate caste system. The stakes, made almost instantly clear, are high: One wrong move and Jacob could be "redlighted," or thrown from the speeding train between stops. Such castoffs seldom survive, and the practice becomes an important subplot for the Depression-era story, as the show's ruthless ringleader regularly jettisons employees whose salaries he can no longer afford.

In the novel, this cruel boss is a separate character from August, the man whose porcelain-fair wife Jacob unwisely covets in the story's central love triangle. Writer Richard LaGravanese streamlines things for the sake of the film, however, eliminating Uncle Al to create a larger and more complex role for Christoph Waltz, custom tailored to the thesp's mix of menace and charm. Elegantly streamlining Jacob's immersion, LaGravanese focuses auds on his protagonist's point of view -- a strategy that comes at the expense of the book's memorable sideshow and supporting cast, while allowing us to learn the ropes and discover luminous star performer Marlena (Witherspoon, the picture of classic glamour) and her jealous husband (Waltz) through his eyes.

Whereas most contempo cinema seems to have lost the art of the character introduction, "Water for Elephants" takes care to create a certain mystique around its key personalities before revealing them onscreen, a tactic that caries through to August's game-changing acquisition of Rosie, a stubborn 73-year-old pachyderm who imbues the film with a giddy sense of wonder from the instant she appears. So intense is our connection with the creature that August's cruelty toward her becomes almost unwatchable, even though the most taxing scene is merely suggested and not seen.

Rosie also accounts for most of the pic's emotional highs, as in the story's eureka moment, which LaGravanese cleverly reconfigures to tie in with an otherwise underdeveloped subplot about the paralysis-inducing consequences of drinking contaminated Jamaican ginger extract, or "Jake." Set against the dual backdrops of the Great Depression and Prohibition, "Water for Elephants" plunges us full-bodied into the world of circus troupes, an all-but-lost slice of recent history ripe for such a spectacular reimagining.

It's an intoxicating place to be, reminiscent of Ray Bradbury's breathless dark-carnival tale "Something Wicked This Way Comes." Considering the unassuming roots of the book on which "Water for Elephants" is based, along with its misfit-focused subject, there's no small irony that the pic should attract such a first-choice roster of collaborators: From dream-cast headliners Pattinson, Witherspoon and Waltz all the way down the line to d.p. Roberto Prieto, composer James Newton Howard (whose rich orchestral score sadly lacks a clear theme) and production designer Jack Fisk, the show is strictly A-list.

The wild card here is Lawrence, who ably rises to the challenge. Despite his flashy musicvideo origins, the helmer takes an assured classical approach to his widescreen canvas, transitioning smoothly from future-looking sci-fiers "Constantine" and "I Am Legend" to this project's more nostalgia-driven demands.

More reviews from Rotten Tomatoes

MercuryNews | LA Times | MovieWeb | StarTribune | The Boston Globe | The Arizona Republic | MSN Movies | Toronto Star | Spirituality and Practice | ModaMag | Hollywood & Fine | Slant Magazine | Movie Minute | BrianOrdof.com | Seatle Times | Time | Rolling Stone | Philadelphia Inquirer | Minneapolis Star Tribune | Kurt Loder - Reason Magazine

More reviews were posted HERE.

The Hollywood Reporter Reviews 'Water for Elephants' + A Few More Reviews

Critics are starting to post 'Water for Elephants' reviews. To avoid spamming, I'll only post the most important ones, you can check more reviews at Rotten Tomatoes.

Keep in mind that not all reviews are going to be "Fresh", some will love the movies, others will disagree. Right now, all of us have to go to the theater, watch WFE, support Rob and share our own thoughts about the film.


Here is the review from The Hollywood Reporter - Read the full review at the source.

A decorous, respectable adaptation of Sara Gruen's engaging best-seller, Water for Elephants would have come more excitingly alive with stronger doses of Depression-era grit and sexual spunk. The 1931 circus setting and a love triangle involving three exceedingly attractive people provides a constant wash of scenic pleasure and the film's fidelity to its source will receive nodding approval from the book's many fans, which should result in solid, if unspectacular commercial results for this Fox release. But the vital spark that would have made the drama truly compelling on the screen is missing.

(...)

Under Francis Lawrence's sleekly studied direction, everything has been smoothed out to the extent that even dire poverty does not seem entirely unappealing. Certainly the three leads never do. Looking 300 per cent better than he did in his last non-”Twilight” outing, “Remember Me,” Pattinson is entirely convincing as Jacob, a Cornell veterinary school student who escapes from the ruin provoked by his parents' untimely death by almost inadvertently joining the circus.

(...)

Waltz, in his first big film since soaring to prominence in Inglourious Basterds, again scores strongly as a powerful middle-aged man who doesn't eliminate the snake in his grass before it's too late. As for Witherspoon, she's as fetching as ever as the platinum blonde any guy would want to catch But when August insults Marlena as being of a “common type,” it's clear Witherspoon needed to inject a bit of Jean Harlow into her characterization to emphasize the lower depths from whence she came that can never be entirely erased. Despite the hard glances and suggestion of a working class accent, Marlena is still a shade too much the lady and not enough of a dame.

Hal Holbrook does a nice job framing the tale as an elderly Jacob telling the story to a modern circus worker, although by rights he should be narrating the whole thing, not Pattinson; again, modern audience sensibilities likely came into play.
Craft contributions are excellent, notably Rodrigo Prieto's lustrous cinematography,

Jack Fisk's highly realized production design and Jacqueline West's resourceful costumes.

ETA: Added Moviehole's review - Read the full review at the source

But the main attraction here is the performances of the three stars. Witherspoon has been very scarce on screen since winning the Best Actress Oscar in 2005 for “Walk the Line.” In the six years before winning the award she appeared in no fewer than nine films. Since, she has appeared in half that number. Her work here is perfectly nuanced in a role that could have quite easily been cliché’d. Waltz is perfect as August in a role that shows us why that Oscar win was so well deserved. But the surprise here, for me anyway, is Pattinson. Quiet and brooding in the “Twilight” films he seems to jump off the screen here, matching Waltz and Witherspoon scene for scene. Who knew this kid could act?? Well done young man. Applause also to the great Hal Holbrook, whose performance bookends the film. And I would be remiss if I didn’t include praise for Rosie the elephant, Queenie the dog and the other animals that help tell the story.

Another review: 3.5 Stars from the Chicago Tribune - Rob is good, not great. The word the reviewer uses is "effectively"

Review from ComingSoon.net - Rating: 8 out of 10 - Click to read full review

The Bottom Line:
Few films deliver exactly what's advertised as well as "Water for Elephants" does with the results being an old school Hollywood romantic epic unlike anything we regularly see anymore. The fact it works as well as it does is a strong testament both to the source material and to those involved with bringing it to the screen.