water for elephants: THE MOVIE

So I was lucky enough to get to see the NC premiere of Water for Elephants tonight, thanks to the kind folks at Algonquin (and can I just say that it is SO AWESOME that a great local indie publisher that puts out GREAT books has such a high-profile movie of one of said great books???? SO AWESOME). Anyway, I liked it a lot, and here are some thoughts about it!

--I cried at least five times, including during the opening scene with Hal Holbrook before a single line had been spoken.
--It looked AMAZING--costumes and sets especially. And the last bits of the movie.
--Reese Witherspoon was really good, and Kristoph Walz was very creepy (I kept hoping Brad Pitt would come in and threaten to scalp him). Robert Pattinson was mostly very good (though sometimes his face looked amused when it seemed like it should have been troubled).
--I will say that the movie seemed really violent at times. I think reading about animal abuse is a lot less harrowing than WATCHING animal abuse--at least two of the times I cried were over the elephant (who rocked).
--Lots of great humor throughout, and I didn't even mind any of the changes! (OK, I did think Marlena's backstory was better in the book, but that wasn't really important to the plot.)
--Go see it!

Thanks again, Algonquin. :)