The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Blistering performances.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

MINOR SPOILERS, not like it matters anywaysI saw this at the 2016 Thailand Film Festival, and so I'll be reviewing this movie from a Thai moviegoer's perspective.There are two main problems why this movie is not worth your time: the dialogue and the way Thailand is portrayed.The movie choosing to make characters speak English is really distracting. Not only does it not make real-life sense because poor elephant herders aren't good at English, it doesn't make sense within the movie's own realm either. The daughter and father character, coming from the same region, has different accent of English. The dialogue itself feels like predictable movie dialogue and not how real people speak; for example, "We're not going to accept your money because we love our elephants!" when realistically folks will just say "Nah thanks mate" and walk off. And the two main villain with their silly fatness and bowl hair cut, HA!The way Thailand is portrayed, in my opinion, is not realistic either. Yes, people do believe in spirits; however, not in the form of "master's spirit comedically comes back to train apprentice for karma points and whines about alcohol". Yes, there are companies using elephants for tourism; however, not in the form of "stereotypical evil corporation's silly fat guy has infinite money and persistence for just one elephant". Many more in accuracies about Thailand.If you really hate good movies and want inaccuracies about Thailand, at least the second Hangover movie is occasionally funny. Three stars are for the film crew's money and my country's economy.