Compare And Contrast Water For Elephants By Sara Gruen

It’s seldom that a movie is ever as good as the book, but after reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, and seeing the film, I’d say they came pretty close. The book was filled with love, action, drama and the circus from the first page to the last. Of course, the movie couldn't possibly include all of the vivid descriptions and every little detail that the book does, or else it’d be seven hours long. But what I enjoyed about the movie was that it picked up on a lot of the great history of circuses in the 1930’s and truly captured the personalities of the characters that Sara Gruen wrote about in the book. After seeing a photograph of the Benzini Bros. Circus from 1931, Jacob Jankowski, a

93-year-old circus retiree, recounts the time

The book takes about 30 pages in the beginning to talk about Jacob and his unhappy life in the nursing home. However, in the movie it never shows Jacob at the nursing home and jumps right into the story. Unlike in the book where he is losing his mind and lonely, Jacob is not portrayed this way in the movie. The movie only has enough room for one bad guy, and that is August. August plays the ringleader and villain of the book. Although Uncle Al had an influential personality in the book, adding him to the movie may been too complicated with all of the flashbacks from the past to present. Also, the movie changed the narration of the story. The book says that Jacob tells his story to the nurses at his nursing home, while in the movie he tells his story to a circus

I finished the novel of Water for Elephants about two days before I watched the film adaptation of the book, so the details of the book were fresh in my mind when I saw the film. Water for Elephants is an outstanding movie, but just not quite as good as the book. The movie stays close to Sara Gruen’s book, particularly with the 1930′s circus memories section. The only place where the movie veers from the original is the details of the older, current Jacob. The film had the amazing actors, the music, and the production design to match the novel and bring to life. Visually, the movie is just what I pictured when reading the book, and that makes it a magical movie to watch. But, the movie lacked some of the passion that is present in the novel. I felt that the book was slightly better than the film, simply because the film did lack of some details. The only disappointment I had with the book was Marlena's weakness. I think I would have loved the book even more had she been written as a more independent and stronger