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.

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. 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.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6b2XhXkPpg

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.

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.

In the early Depression, times are hard and jobs few. The circus is deep in debt, and August produces a new star attraction he believes can save it. This is Rosie, a middle-aged elephant, who he thinks Marlena can ride, and Jacob can train and care for, although neither has worked with an elephant before. Scenes involving the personality and language comprehension of elephants create an intrinsic charm, and the movie surrounds them with a convincing portrait of circus life on the road.

“Water for Elephants” was directed by Francis Lawrence, whose “I Am Legend” and “Constantine”. The screenplay is by Richard LaGravenese, whose “The Horse Whisperer” also showed a sympathy for the personalities of animals. Rosie is not as charismatic as a horse, but you have to concede that her timing is impeccable. This is good sound family entertainment, a safe PG-13.