Plot

Jacob takes a job as an animal caretaker in a traveling circus. There he meets Marlena, a beautiful circus performer. Their shared compassion for a special elephant Rosie leads to love, but Marlena's cruel husband stands in their way.

After his parents' death, Jacob Jankowski is left penniless and homeless. Events lead him to joining the circus as their vet, working under their unstable boss August whose violent tendencies give everyone reason to be cautious around him, including his beautiful and quiet wife Marlena, whom August is very possessive of and who Jacob finds himself soon falling in love with.—mel47

An old man meanders around a circus late at night: he's missed his ride to a rest home. He tells the circus manager about his time in 1931 with the doomed Benzini Circus. He's Jake: when his parents die before he finishes veterinary studies, he hobos his way toward Albany, falling in with a circus. He diagnoses a lame horse, and August, the mercurial owner, hires him as a vet. August is in debt, throwing employees from the train in the dead of night. To sell tickets, he buys an elephant, tells Jake to train it and his young wife Marlena to ride it. While August's temper threatens the elephant, Marlena and Jake find a mutual attraction. And the doomed circus?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

When an old man is found wandering in the parking area of the Circus Vargas, his owner invites him to come to his office to call the Green Haven nursing home to take him back home. The old man tells his name, Jacob Jankowski, and explains that he worked in the Benzini Bros. Circus in 1931. The owner is curious about it since in 1931 there was the most famous disaster in history of circuses in the Benzini Circus and asks Jacob to tell what happened. In 1931, during the Great Depression, the Polish American Jacob lives with his beloved parents in a small ranch and studies veterinary in the Cornell University. During his final exams, his parents die in a car accident. Jacob learns that he is homeless and without any money since his parents used their house to get a loan for his studies. Jacob leaves his town and jumps in a train in movement without destination to seek a job. Soon he finds that this is the Benzini Brothers Circus train and he finds a job cleaning the animals' excrement from the wagons. When the unstable and violent owner of the traveling circus, August, learns that Jacob is a veterinary, he hires him to train his attraction, the elephant Rosie. August and his bodyguard Blackie, throw workers that complain off the train in movement to get rid of them. Meanwhile Jacob meets August's wife and lead attraction Marlena, he immediately falls in love with her. Jacob gets closer to Marlena and soon he discovers that she is also in love with him, but she fears August.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

After seeing a photograph of the Benzini Bros. Circus circa 1931 among the possessions of Charlie O'Brien III, the owner/operator of the Circus Vargas, elderly Jacob Jankowski recounts to him the time he spent with Benzini Bros. that year. Because of a sudden change to his family and financial circumstance, Jacob, then twenty-three, was forced to give up everything he knew, including his home, his almost completed Cornell education in veterinary science, and what he had mapped out as his future. Hitting the road with no idea where he would end up, he stumbled across Benzini Bros. by accident, it being owned and operated at that time by August Rosenbluth. August, who was also the head animal trainer, treated people the way he trained his animals, with fear, intimidation and when need be violence and sometimes even death. Jacob started out doing the lowest of the menial work, but graduated to become the circus' vet, based on August's assumption that Jacob graduated. Regardless, August was happy to have him in the position, as Benzini Bros.'s main rival, Ringling Bros., had no such position on staff. Through many extreme ups and even more and severely extreme downs, Jacob became a trusted part of August's circus family. August acquired an aged elephant named Rosie in order for the circus to have a star attraction, which he hoped would get him out of his then financial hole. Jacob would be Rosie's trainer, and Marlena Rosenbluth, the circus' headlining horse trick rider and August's young wife, would be the performer with Rosie. Both Jacob and Marlena formed a bond with Rosie, in large part because of August's ill treatment of her. Although Jacob was immediately attracted to Marlena on first sight, they fell in love through their work together on the act with Rosie, but also had growing disdain for August and his violent ways. Their romantic triangle would not only threaten Jacob and Marlena's lives, but also the livelihood of the circus.—Huggo

The film opens in present day, when the proprietor of a small traveling circus (portrayed in the movie by Circus Vargas) encounters an elderly man who has apparently become detached from his nursing home group, which attended the circus earlier that day. They strike up a conversation and the elderly man reveals that he himself had a career in the circus business. Jacob (Robert Pattinson) reveals that he was present during one of the most infamous circus disasters of all time and the circus owner asks him to share his story.

Most of the film then takes place in a flashback to the era of the Great Depression. 23-year-old Polish American Jacob is a Cornell veterinary medicine student on the brink of a promising career as a veterinarian. Unfortunately, during his last final exam, he is informed that his parents were killed in a car crash. His father has left huge debts, and the bank was foreclosing on Jacob's home. Feeling there is no point in returning to school, and having no home to go home to, he jumps onto a passing train where he meets Camel.

In the morning, Jacob discovers that he jumped on the Benzini Brothers Circus train. He sees a beautiful woman, Marlena Rosenbluth (Reese Witherspoon), and meets August, the circus owner, head animal trainer, and Marlena's husband. Jacob reveals he studied veterinary science and has noticed a problem with Silver, the star horse in the show. August agrees to hire Jacob as a vet for the circus animals after Jacob tells August that Silver has Laminitis, is in terrible pain and will soon be unable to walk, never mind perform.

August instructs Jacob to "fix" Silver and keep him performing as long as possible. But Jacob cannot bear to see Silver's suffering and takes it upon himself to put Silver down. August is furious with Jacob's decision to euthanize Silver against orders. To show Jacob who is boss, he threatens to throw him from the moving train - telling him that an animal's suffering is nothing compared to a man's, and that Jacob must carry out all of August's future orders if he wishes to keep his job.

August eventually procures Rosie the elephant as Silver's replacement. He is initially thrilled and invites Jacob to his car for dinner and cocktails with him and Marlena. Jacob - clearly attracted to Marlena - watches uncomfortably as the married couple flirt and dance in front of him, but later in the evening becomes clear that their relationship is complicated. August is possessive, jealous and sometimes rough with Marlena.

In the next few weeks, August becomes frustrated when Rosie the elephant seems impossible to train. August is brutal with Rosie, beating her when she fails to follow orders. After one such beating, Jacob realizes that the elephant was trained in Polish and only understands Polish commands. After that, Rosie performs beautifully and the circus enjoys a short period of success. While working closely together to train Rosie, Jacob and Marlena fall in love. After August discovers this, he cruelly taunts the two. Later that night, Marlena discovers that August plans to throw Jacob from the train and they run away together. Hiding in a local hotel, they are ambushed by August's henchmen who drag Marlena away and beat up Jacob.

Jacob returns to the circus to find Marlena. After Marlena finds Jacob she tells him that his friends Walter (Kinko) and Camel were thrown from the train and killed. Several circus employees have become fed up with August's murderous cruelty and unleash their revenge by unlocking all the animals' cages while the big top tent is jam-packed with an audience enjoying Marlena and Rosie's performance. Jacob attempts to find Marlena in the chaos and August attacks him. When Marlena tries to stop August from beating Jacob, he turns his fury on her and attempts to choke her, while one of August's henchmen continues beating Jacob. Two circus workers save Jacob just in time. Lying on the ground, bloodied and beaten, he looks up and sees Rosie hit August on the back of the head with a metal spike, killing him.

Back in the present, Jacob explains what happened afterward: he returned to Cornell, took his last exam, and finished his degree. He and Marlena took several of the horses and Rosie and got jobs with Ringling Brothers - he as a vet and she continuing to perform with the animals. They married and had five children and kept Rosie until her death many years later. Eventually, he took a job as a vet at the Albany Zoo and Marlena died peacefully in her bed at an old age. He convinces the circus owner to whom he is telling his story to hire him in the ticket booth. The circus owner agrees and Jacob states that he has finally come home.