In defense of fresh, hot cinnamon toast

People used to ask me, “Can’t you ever just sit back and enjoy a movie? Do you always have to be a critic?” And I would always answer, “Critiquing a film IS my way of enjoying it.”

I say that as a means of addressing my affection for Francis Lawrence’s adaptation of Sara Gruen’s novel “Water for Elephants,” which was part of the discussion as we taped “Movies 101” earlier today.

First, let me say that I never read the book. So I don’t have to make any comparisons.

Second, let me make it clear that I don’t think the film is very good. It’s cheesy and predictable and badly acted and written in a way that makes Nicholas Sparks look like Tolstoy.

But I like the way the film was made. This week’s guest cohost, Barb Williamson, said the film was “innocuous,” that it was like eating white bread. And I can’t say I disagree. At the same time, white bread isn’t always something I think needs to be avoided.

Look, much — if not most — of what Hollywood offers us is about as wholesome and filling as the ironically named Wonder Bread. This applies both thematically and in the way the respective movie is constructed. Aimed at the lowest common denominator. Acted broadly. Shot from simplistic angles, focused by someone wearing coke-bottle-bottom glasses and edited as if in a blender.

Lawrence offers us none of that (well, hardly none). His movie is less like Wonder Bread than it is like pulling on a pair of snug, comfortable shoes. It’s like settling in a hot tub with a cold drink at your side. It’s like discovering that your date actually likes to drink beer, can recite Ichiro’s batting average and thinks it’s cute that you tear up at Kodak commercials.

“Water for Elephants” isn’t much, but the camera work takes you directly into every scene, the art direction is like a painting (OK, more like Elvis on black velvet than anything remotely Van Gogh, but so what?), the editing flows smoothly from one well-conceived shot to the next and the cinematography is to puppy-warm emotions what cinnamon is to freshy toasted bread.

So, yeah, I had a good time watching “Water for Elephants.” No one’s ever going to mistake it for “Citizen Kane.” But it’s several light years above anything else Hollywood has released over the past several weeks, not to mention any adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel ever made.

And if you’re forced to suffer through one bit of Hollywood flotsam after the next, week after week, sometimes a date with puppies and hot cinnamon toast is just what Dr. Movies ordered.

Below : The trailer for “Water for Elephants.”