THE ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM – The Review

Produced and directed by filmmaker Michael Webber, THE ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM documents a hard and sometimes disturbing look at what happens when people decide it’s a good idea to keep wild, “exotic” animals as pets.

Centered around the efforts of one Ohio Public Safety Officer, Tim Harrison, the film explores his life’s mission to not only remove such animals from private owners, but to rehabilitate these animals back to being with others of their kind in a safe and healthy environment, such as a sanctuary.

One such owner is Terry Brumfield, a man who after surviving a truck accident takes refuge from his depression by hand raising 2 African lion cubs – which, by the way, are perfectly legal to own in Ohio and 30 other states in the US.

Terry, like so many others, starts out raising the lions with the best of intentions and has a deep love for his “pets,” as if they were his own children. Like many exotic pet owners, Terry never imagines the usually tragic ending that comes to most of these animals. Simply explained by Harrison, these situations never, ever end well – either grave harm comes to the owner, or some other innocent neighbor or family member when the once-cute baby animal becomes too mature and physically strong to handle, or the animal gets loose, which often leads to devastating consequences.

The film deftly cuts back and forth between Terry’s story and that of Harrison’s crusade. Armed with a hidden camera, Harrison and Webber take us inside bizarre Mid-West “exotic” animal auctions, where it is flat out appalling just how easy and relatively inexpensive it is to purchase deadly species of snakes, reptiles and big cats (also known as “apex predators” at the top of the food chain). For around $600, buyers can purchase African lion cubs, Bengal tiger cubs, black bears, a hyena pup, and even a Nile crocodile that a small boy proudly carries out in a plastic bucket – one that will grow to be at least 8 feet long.

Harrison’s daily safety calls mostly revolve around responding to animal escape calls (one 911 call has terrified citizens reporting a full-grown male African lion attacking cars on a rural stretch of interstate) and rescuing children and senior citizens from deadly snakes that were once someone’s pet. In one especially poignant scene where Harrison waits in the woods, tracking a full grown “pet” mountain lion, he struggles with the question of letting the animal stay wild and “free,” or capturing it, only to be unfairly caged for the rest of its life.

Back at Terry Brumfield’s place, his now full-grown lions Lambert and Lacie not only need a larger, more secure enclosure, but now have become the parents of 3 cubs, and it’s painful to watch as Brumfield comes to the inevitable realization that he must give them up, not only for his own safety and that of his family and neighbors, but for the safety of his beloved lions. As Terry’s story comes to its tragic conclusion and nearly destroys him, we witness a slow transformation as he sadly admits that if he had it to do all over again, he would not choose to selfishly keep animals that have no business being pets.

Not wanting to be a complete downer, the film ends with a happy outcome for some of the animals and drives home Harrison’s continuing and unwavering message: As long as it is legal to own exotic animals, many people will continue to purchase and raise them, ignoring the warnings about all to often deadly consequences. It is also a message of hope that one day, under Federal law it will be illegal to own exotic animals in all 50 states.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM is playing in select theaters now. Click HERE to see the theaters where the film is playing near you. Visit the film’s official site HERE and “Like” it on Facebook HERE.

(Reviewed at Mann’s Chinese 6 Theatre, Hollywood, April 1, 2011)

Epilogue (SPOILER BELOW)

At a reception following the film, sponsored by the United States Humane Society, I spoke with both Michael Webber and Tim Harrison, and among other things, asked about Terry Brumfield and his life since filming ended. In a bizarre and tragic twist of events, and not discussed in the film, just weeks before he was going to visit his lions for the first time since sending them to a sanctuary in Colorado, Terry was struck and killed by a train while crossing a “blind” section of railroad tracks in his pick-up on the edge of his property. With special permission from the state of Ohio, Terry Brumfield was buried next to his beloved lion, Lambert, with Harrison and Webber delivering the eulogy at his funeral