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One Lucky Elephant
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Metascore
71 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 13 Critics What's this?

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  • Summary: One Lucky Elephant begins with circus producer David Balding’s realization that Flora, the orphaned African elephant he adopted and made the star of his circus, is tired of performing. What unfolds is a nine-year odyssey to find Flora a good home. Caught between the human and animal world, Flora epitomizes the harsh reality elephants face in our expanding man-made world. Through Flora and David’s story, the film raises questions about our complex relationships with animals, for which there are no easy answers. One thing is certain: after watching this film, you will never look at an elephant in a zoo or a circus in the same way again. (Crossover Productions)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 13
  3. Negative: 0 out of 13
  1. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Alison Willmore
    Jun 9, 2011
    91
    One Lucky Elephant would make an affecting pairing with James Marsh's upcoming "Project Nim," another film about an animal treated like a human until its essential wildness made that impossible.
  2. indieWIRE
    Reviewed by: Eric Kohn
    Jun 6, 2011
    83
    Unlike recent activist documentaries about animal cruelty like "The Cove," Leeman's narrative doesn't feature any real villains. Balding's bond with Flora leaves him in a perpetual state of uncertainty about which possible new home for his elephant would provide the safest habitat.
  3. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    Aug 18, 2011
    60
    Michael Webber's documentary "The Elephant in the Living Room" (2010) makes such a powerful case against private ownership of exotic wild animals that this portrait of circus owner David Balding and his beloved elephant Flora seems sentimental by comparison.

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