Elephant makes a solid case for such a ban, particularly with disturbing hidden-camera footage taken at live-animal swap meets. Dads and their kids roam the aisles of fold-up tables covered with the world’s most dangerous snakes, which are kept from the public only via Tupperware secured with tape. Harrison purchases a deadly puff adder as easily as you might grab a box of cereal off the shelf, and he gets footage of monkeys and baby tigers ready to be auctioned off. It’s heartbreaking, and clearly framed by Webber to expose the uselessness and cruelty of the whole enterprise.
But much of Elephant is also given over to the story of Terry Brumfield, in an effort to understand why someone might want to own, say, a pair of full-grown lions. Badly injured in a truck accident, Brumfield fell into a depression that was at least partly cured by his relationship with Lambert, a lion cub he raised into a full-grown, 550-pound adult. Their interplay is sweet, but it’s clear—even to Brumfield—that a backyard pen in rural Ohio is no place for the king of the jungle. It doesn’t help when Lambert escapes his enclosure and causes a ruckus on rural route 23, lunging at cars. And though some lip service is given to pro-exotic-pet types (the chief argument: “This is America, I should be free to own whatever I want”), The Elephant In The Living Room comes down clearly in favor of Harrison’s cause. It’s hard not to. In that sense, the documentary shoots fish in a barrel—or maybe snakes in Tupperware—but it does so with gripping, maddening, well-told stories.
