- Critic Score
- Most active
- Publication
- Most clicked
-
Jun 9, 201191One 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.
-
83Unlike 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.
-
80The film is an impressive and affecting entry in the growing body of work addressing the effects of keeping wild animals in captivity.
-
Jun 6, 201180A bittersweet story of man, beast and a very real relationship that makes helmer Lisa Leeman's documentary the thinking person's "Dumbo" -- and, coincidentally, one of the better kids' movies.
-
75Simple enough to delight a child and complex enough to baffle a philosopher.
-
75How much human love is too much for an elephant? That's the question Lisa Leeman's One Lucky Elephant attempts to answer, without sentimentality but with the right amount of compassion.
-
75A uniquely passive reminder of the dangers of showering exotic creatures with anthropomorphic affection.
-
70The equally simple and profound take-away from One Lucky Elephant is that the best thing we can do is let Flora be Flora.
-
70Succeeds as a character study, while gently raising questions about human use and misuse of animals.
-
70Admirably, and gently, raises questions about the folly and hubris of a relationship that may only ever be one-sided.
-
60Michael 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.
-
60Animal people sometimes say the wackiest things, but here, alas, they never satisfyingly address the ethical questions of what it means to capture and keep wild animals. Happily, while this movie's head may not always be in the right place, its heart is.
-
60That One Lucky Elephant ultimately comes down on the side of anthropomorphizing Flora and her kind is extremely disappointing - a little clear-eyed ambivalence would have helped the film feel more focused and less like patchwork.