Water for Elephants

     I'm sick of watching the typical love story movies.  The one's about a guy and a girl, both in their twenties,  living in the city, who become friends or date, then have a huge fight, and then end up back together in the end.  They're predicable.  So I decided to watch Water for Elephants.  It's a 2011 film directed by Francis Lawrence, about a circus vet.  It stars Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz.
     I think the reason I liked it was because the whole film was a flashback.  I feel like a lot of films don't take advantage of flashbacks.  It's interesting to see a characters back story.  It's also cool how it's set in the early 30's at a circus.  Just by choosing a circus, you already know that there will be a lot of color, light, and music.
     I think the director did a good decision with the music soundtrack.  Throughout a majority of the movie there is music but it's all different types.  He made good decisions when it came to when to play certain melodies.  At about the 38:30 mark, when Jacob is about to be thrown off the train, the strings playing in the background added to the suspense of the situation. 
    Another thing I enjoyed that was different about this film, was after the flashback, the character ended up where he started.  He started in a circus when he was growing up, and the movie ends with him getting back into another one.  Also the amount of animals used in this film was cool.  It had all different circus acts; lions, hyenas, horses, elephants, etc.  Many times films only take advantage of one type of animal or even just dogs and cats, or when they have a lot of animals, they're animated, but this movie, they're real and interact with the people.