There’s no denying the “aww” appeal of a man and an elephant walking down a street, hand in trunk. That is one truth in “One Lucky Elephant,” a sweet, heart- and trunk-tugging, modestly sized documentary — except for its 10,000-pound title subject — about a circus man and the wild animal he foolishly bought, helped to train, loved like a (captive) daughter and finally, tearfully, tried to do right by, mostly by letting her go.
When David Balding met Flora, the African elephant at the center of this drama and the former star of his St. Louis circus, she was a baby. Born in Zimbabwe in 1982, she was orphaned at 2, perhaps during what is called a culling, the polite word for the organized killing of animals for population control. As it sometimes is on the harder questions, the documentary tends to be frustratingly vague on Flora’s origins, though the Web site for Mr. Balding’s circus, circusflora.org, states that she was orphaned by ivory poachers. Whatever the case, he bought Flora when she was still shorter than he and before long had her trained to stand on her head and lie down for the one-ring circus he helped establish in 1987.
By the time Flora was a teenager, Mr. Balding, realizing that she would probably outlive him — African elephants can live up to 70 years — decided that he needed to find her a new home, no easy task. In 2000 Flora performed for the last time, an event documented by the director Lisa Leeman. (The filmmakers learned about the retirement through Miriam Cutler, the documentary’s co-producer. Ms. Cutler is the resident composer for Circus Flora and wrote the bouncy, whimsical score, suggestive of the cafe-jazz sound of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.) After immortalizing that final performance, the filmmakers kept shooting, tagging after Mr. Balding for the next decade during his long, difficult goodbye to Flora.
Mr. Balding is as much an attraction in the movie as Flora, and only somewhat less charming. He’s a big bear of a man, fuzzy and round, with obvious health issues — as the movie goes on, he uses a cane, crutches, a wheelchair and a motorized cart to get around — and a sympathetic screen presence. His fondness for Flora registers as entirely real and deep, whether he’s shooing her away as he talks to the camera — her trunk undulating around his body, she appears to be trying to pick his pockets in one scene, presumably for treats — or taking their last bow under the big top. His regret over adopting this majestic animal feels equally sincere, and it’s his remorse, as much as the shots of Flora in action, that impresses.
There’s no denying Mr. Balding’s love for Flora, which at times threatens to overwhelm the movie, flooding it with tears when clear-eyed thinking — and by someone other than Mr. Balding — would be better. “One Lucky Elephant” is on the side of Flora and her captured kind, but it also hedges. Using a weave of original visuals, including talking-head interviews, along with stock footage, television news clips and archival photographs, it is an engaging, if shallow, 84-minute-long story about a man trying to right a wrong that the movie itself doesn’t adequately explore. Ms. Leeman includes some images of the young Flora being trained, for instance, but because Mr. Balding does most of the talking (in voice-over he admits that one trainer’s methods were harsh), the cruelty of the elephant instruction feels soft-pedaled.
Flora is loved but, pace the title, it’s a stretch to call her lucky. Intent on entertaining you no matter how disturbing the material, Ms. Leeman perhaps doesn’t see it that way, which may explain why the movie bogs down in its last third, as Mr. Balding bickers with the sanctuary where he placed Flora. Animal 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: it ends with an appeal to learn more at the movie’s own Web site, oneluckyelephant.com, where you can find a link to Ahali Elephants, a charity formed to help Flora.
One Lucky Elephant
Opens on Wednesday in Manhattan.Directed by Lisa Leeman; written by Ms. Leeman and Cristina Colissimo; director of photography, Sandra Chandler; edited by Kate Amend and Tchavdar Georgiev; music by Miriam Cutler; produced by Ms. Colissimo and Jordana Glick-Franzheim. At Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes. This film is not rated.