life of pi movie review

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Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" is a miraculous achievement of storytelling and a landmark of visual mastery. Inspired by a worldwide best-seller that many readers must have assumed was unfilmable, it is a triumph over its difficulties. It is also a moving spiritual achievement, a movie whose title could have been shortened to "life."

The story involves the 227 days that its teenage hero spends drifting across the Pacific in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. They find themselves in the same boat after an amusing and colorful prologue, which in itself could have been enlarged into an exciting family film. Then it expands into a parable of survival, acceptance and adaptation. I imagine even Yann Martel , the novel's French-Canadian author, must be delighted to see how the usual kind of Hollywood manhandling has been sidestepped by Lee's poetic idealism.

The story begins in a small family zoo in Pondichery, India, where the boy christened Piscine is raised. Piscine translates from French to English as "swimming pool," but in an India where many more speak English than French, his playmates of course nickname him "pee." Determined to put an end to this, he adopts the name " Pi ," demonstrating an uncanny ability to write down that mathematical constant that begins with 3.14 and never ends. If Pi is a limitless number, that is the perfect name for a boy who seems to accept no limitations.

The zoo goes broke, and Pi's father puts his family and a few valuable animals on a ship bound for Canada. In a bruising series of falls, a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and the lion tumble into the boat with the boy, and are swept away by high seas. His family is never seen again, and the last we see of the ship is its lights disappearing into the deep — a haunting shot that reminds me of the sinking train in Bill Forsyth's " Housekeeping " (1987).

This is a hazardous situation for the boy ( Suraj Sharma ), because the film steadfastly refuses to sentimentalize the tiger (fancifully named "Richard Parker"). A crucial early scene at the zoo shows that wild animals are indeed wild and indeed animals, and it serves as a caution for children in the audience, who must not make the mistake of thinking this is a Disney tiger.

The heart of the film focuses on the sea journey, during which the human demonstrates that he can think with great ingenuity and the tiger shows that it can learn. I won't spoil for you how those things happen. The possibilities are surprising.

What astonishes me is how much I love the use of 3-D in "Life of Pi." I've never seen the medium better employed, not even in " Avatar ," and although I continue to have doubts about it in general, Lee never uses it for surprises or sensations, but only to deepen the film's sense of places and events.

Let me try to describe one point of view. The camera is placed in the sea, looking up at the lifeboat and beyond it. The surface of the sea is like the enchanted membrane upon which it floats. There is nothing in particular to define it; it is just … there. This is not a shot of a boat floating in the ocean. It is a shot of ocean, boat and sky as one glorious place.

Still trying not to spoil: Pi and the tiger Richard Parker share the same possible places in and near the boat. Although this point is not specifically made, Pi's ability to expand the use of space in the boat and nearby helps reinforce the tiger's respect for him. The tiger is accustomed to believing it can rule all space near him, and the human requires the animal to rethink that assumption.

Most of the footage of the tiger is of course CGI, although I learn that four real tigers are seen in some shots. The young actor Suraj Sharma contributes a remarkable performance, shot largely in sequence as his skin color deepens, his weight falls and deepness and wisdom grow in his eyes.

The writer W.G. Sebold once wrote, "Men and animals regard each other across a gulf of mutual incomprehension." This is the case here, but during the course of 227 days, they come to a form of recognition. The tiger, in particular, becomes aware that he sees the boy not merely as victim or prey, or even as master, but as another being.

The movie quietly combines various religious traditions to enfold its story in the wonder of life. How remarkable that these two mammals, and the fish beneath them and birds above them, are all here. And when they come to a floating island populated by countless meerkats, what an incredible sequence Lee creates there.

The island raises another question: Is it real? Is this whole story real? I refuse to ask that question. "Life of Pi" is all real, second by second and minute by minute, and what it finally amounts to is left for every viewer to decide. I have decided it is one of the best films of the year.

Read and make comments here .

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Life of Pi (2012)

Rated PG for emotional thematic content throughout, and some scary action sequences and peril

127 minutes

Suraj Sharma as Pi

Tabu as Gita

Gerard Depardieu as Cook

Rafe Spall as Writer

Directed by

• David Magee

Based on the novel by

• Yann Martel

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Beautiful, emotional, intense story of faith and friendship.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Strong themes of the power of faith, friendship, p

Pi survives against the strongest possible odds, f

Several very intense sequences with lots of action

Mild flirting between a teenage couple; women in s

A few uses of "pissing," mostly said by other boys

Parents need to know that Life of Pi is an intense, emotional story of survival and triumph against the odds, with themes of faith, friendship, and perseverance. Although it's rated PG, and there's virtually no strong language, sexual content, or blood, this adaptation of Yann Martel's bestselling novel has…

Positive Messages

Strong themes of the power of faith, friendship, perseverance, and the ability to let go. As a boy, Pi looks for meaning/comfort in many religions, ultimately embracing different aspects of several of them. His faith is tested many times over the course of the movie, but he holds tight to it. The idea that faith involves thinking and questioning, rather than blind acceptance, is put forward. Pi and Richard Parker develop a relationship that sustains both of them, unusual as it might be.

Positive Role Models

Pi survives against the strongest possible odds, facing down vicious storms, hungry animals, and self-doubt. His faith sustains him through much of what he faces; he's also determined, hardworking, and resourceful, and he cares deeply about his fellow creatures. His father encourages Pi to think critically and question the way things are: "I would rather have you believe in something I disagree with than accept all things."

Violence & Scariness

Several very intense sequences with lots of action, peril, and emotional impact. (Possible spoiler alerts!) Pi loses his family when their ship violently sinks during a raging storm at sea (huge crashing waves, chaos, etc.); he sees the eerie, doomed sunken ship under the water. Later, another terrible storm nearly costs him and Richard Parker their lives. Zoo animals confront, kill, and eat each other at very close quarters; a little blood is shown, and the scenes are upsetting. Richard Parker frequently growls, snarls, charges, and roars at Pi, which could scare younger children. Pi is very upset after he kills a fish for Richard Parker to eat, sobbing at the idea of having taken a life. Early in the movie, Pi's father makes him watch Richard Parker eat a goat (nothing graphic shown) as a lesson in the nature of wild animals. Some yelling/confrontations. Pi finds something very unsettling on a peculiar island.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Mild flirting between a teenage couple; women in swimwear.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

A few uses of "pissing," mostly said by other boys making fun of Pi's full name, Piscine. "Curry eaters" is said as an insult.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Life of Pi is an intense, emotional story of survival and triumph against the odds, with themes of faith, friendship, and perseverance. Although it's rated PG, and there's virtually no strong language, sexual content, or blood, this adaptation of Yann Martel's bestselling novel has several very harrowing (especially in 3-D) scenes of storms, shipwrecks, the possibility of implied cannibalism, and zoo animals threatening humans and confronting, killing, and eating each other -- all of which are likely to be too much for younger children (as are the themes of allegory and mysticism, which will require thoughtful parental explanation). Pi is in near-constant peril throughout the story (though it's told as a flashback, so you know he'll survive) and, after losing his whole family, he must negotiate sharing a very small space with a large, unpredictable tiger (one of Pi's tactics involves peeing on part of the lifeboat they share). But through it all, he remains determined and optimistic, relying on his strong faith to see him through every challenge he must face. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (41)
• Kids say (88)

Based on 41 parent reviews

Totally harrowing for under 14, I disagree with CSM here

Powerful, beautiful, what's the story.

Growing up in India, young Piscine "Pi" Patel (played by Ayush Tandon) is a thoughtful boy who finds himself curious about God in all of his many forms. The strong, if unusual, hybrid faith that he develops serves teenage Pi (played impressively by Suraj Sharma) well after -- spoiler alert ! -- he loses his whole family when their ship sinks during a terrible storm and he finds himself adrift on a lifeboat with four zoo animals: a wounded zebra, an aggressive hyena, a friendly orangutan, and the large, unpredictable tiger known as Richard Parker. Eventually just Pi and Richard Parker remain, and together they must figure out how to stay alive on the open ocean.

Is It Any Good?

LIFE OF PI is a beautiful, emotionally resonant tale of faith, friendship, and perseverance. A runaway bestseller when it was published in 2001, Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi was long considered by many to be unfilmable. After all, one of the two main characters is a tiger, who spends much of the story in close quarters with a teenage human. In the middle of the ocean. But director Ang Lee , who is nothing if not unpredictable himself, has proven any remaining naysayers wrong in spades.

It looks absolutely gorgeous -- like James Cameron did in Avatar , Lee uses 3-D to make the world of Life of Pi an immersive, almost tactile place, from the hummingbirds that flit toward your face to the enormous waves that bear down on you during the intense storm sequences. The CGI is equally impressive; while intellectually you know that it would be next to impossible to get a tiger to do the things that Richard Parker does, there are moments when his fur ripples so realistically that you'd swear he's 100 percent real. While some of the story's twists and themes will probably have more impact on those who haven't read the book, there's no denying that Life of Pi is a powerful movie that's just as likely to make you think as it is to make you shed a tear or cheer in triumph.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about which version of Pi's story they think is true. Why do you think that? Which one do you think the movie wants you to believe?

What is the movie saying about faith? Is it necessary to be religious to be faithful? (Or vice versa?) How is Pi's faith tested?

How does the movie depict Pi's many losses? Do you think you could overcome the challenges he faces? How do his experiences change him as a character?

If you've read the book, how does the movie compare? What changes did you notice? Why do you think filmmakers sometimes change things when adapting books for the big screen?

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 21, 2012
• On DVD or streaming : March 12, 2013
• Cast : Irrfan Khan , Rafe Spall , Suraj Sharma
• Director : Ang Lee
• Inclusion Information : Indian/South Asian actors
• Studio : Twentieth Century Fox
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : Adventures , Book Characters , Wild Animals
• Run time : 127 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG
• MPAA explanation : emotional thematic content throughout, and some scary action sequences and peril
• Award : Academy Award
• Last updated : November 2, 2023

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Life of Pi Reviews

A marvelous piece of visual poetry with insights that require contemplation long after the visual awe has subsided.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 21, 2022

The animation involved in bringing Richard Parker to life is something you just have to see. I was blown away.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 23, 2022

ee's directorial instincts are sharp as ever. He can cultivate a believable relationship between Pi and Richard, relying primarily on subtle body language and, of course, the masterful visual effects.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 28, 2022

In my view, people who find no drama in everyday life and lives, and feel obliged, for example, to ski down Mount Everest to keep themselves occupied and excited, are not to be trusted about important matters.

Full Review | Feb 12, 2021

Why must bitter reality always rear its ugly head in such parables?

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Dec 2, 2020

Suraj Sharma gives a performance that exudes both boyish charm and a soulful desperation.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 14, 2020

Giving Ang Lee access to 3D camera equipment and a modern-day fable like "Life of Pi" is the best idea anyone has had in a long time.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jul 14, 2020

I have certainly seen dramas about survivors; but none, absolutely none that I have seen compare to the spectacular 'Life of Pi'. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Jun 25, 2020

Among its many virtues, this beautiful fable of a teen boy holding a grown tiger at bay for 277 days at sea makes a strong case for the superiority of live-action drama over animation...

Full Review | Jun 19, 2020

...in the end, we must abandon ourselves to the storytelling. With a gorgeous film like Life of Pi, that's not hard to do.

Full Review | Mar 10, 2020

Although certain narrative themes seem overblown or loaded with fallacious simplicity, film is a visual medium at heart and LIFE OF PI is the work of a visual storyteller at the top of his game.

Full Review | Feb 13, 2020

In a rare alignment of artistic vision and blockbuster ambition, Life of Pi stretches the horizon of cinema's new technology to restore old-fashioned movie magic.

Full Review | Jul 29, 2019

Lee imbues the film with remarkable grace, even when its imagery threatens to overwhelm it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 8, 2019

This is a strong piece of filmmaking from Lee, an exquisite bit of eye candy that examines the power of God and religion in a sharp and confident manner.

Full Review | Apr 11, 2019

A boy, and a tiger, and a vast, endless ocean. Ang Lee makes a film out of material that seems almost unfilmable, and a lot of it is quite wondrous.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 22, 2019

Ultimately, Life of Pi as film is a visual complement to Yann Martel's story as opposed to a fresh telling of its own

Full Review | Feb 28, 2019

Life of Pi is beautifully rendered with some fine performances. Unfortunately, this novel deemed by many to be 'unfilmable' ultimately proves to at least partially earn that distinction.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 21, 2019

Lee has successfully married some of this year's most sumptuous visuals with one of its most compelling and unashamedly spiritual stories.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 6, 2019

The visuals and special effects are imaginatively exquisite.

Full Review | Jan 19, 2019

Any old actor will tell you to never share the stage with children or animals. Certainly, that is the case here, as the film is almost exclusively child and animal -- and wonderful.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 1, 2018

Life of Pi (2012)

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Life of Pi Review

Lyrical, moving adaptation of the bestseller..

Life of Pi is full of wonder, life, and beauty, a visual spectacle that never forgets to connect with audiences on a human level. One of the year's best films.

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Review: ‘Life Of Pi’ Is An Inspiring & Visually Stunning Tale Of Faith, Hope & Self-Discovery

Rodrigo perez.

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Taiwanese-born American film director Ang Lee ’s career is difficult to pin down. He’s constructed nuanced and well-crafted dramas of various milieus and textures (from “ The Ice Storm ,” and “ Sense and Sensibility ” to the more erotic “ Lust/Caution ” and “ Brokeback Mountain ”) and orchestrated films of more action-oriented visual pizzazz and flair as well (“ Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ,” “ Hulk “). Perhaps bridging all of his eclectic interests, Lee configures a lovely and winning formula for the dazzling and emotionally rich “ Life Of Pi .”

On par with the 3D prowess of James Cameron ‘s “ Avatar ” and Martin Scorsese ‘s “ Hugo ,” Lee utilizes stereoscopic technology to imbue the picture with the same sense of visual awe and wonder. In short, “Life Of Pi” is a visual marvel and an extraordinary technological achievement. But perhaps what makes the picture better than both the aforementioned 3D touchstone pictures is that character, soul and emotion are paramount in its mind over visual pyrotechnics. In fact, one could argue that, outside of a few stunning visual sequences, “Life of Pi” is not very reliant on 3D to tell its story, and that’s probably why the technology enhances the story, rather than elevates it.

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Told in a rather conventional flashback conceit from an older man’s point of view — Irrfan Khan  relating his unbelievable and harrowing tale of survival to an unnamed author played by Rafe Spall — Ang Lee’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s beloved novel is dynamic and enthralling with a moving and life-affirming tone that is genuinely earned and largely escapes most traps of cloying sentimentality (don’t worry, songs by Coldplay and Sigur Ros are relegated to the trailer only).

Deeply patient, the central narrative of “Life of Pi” — focusing on a sixteen-year-old Indian boy shipwrecked at sea in a life raft with minimal rations and an adult Bengal tiger — doesn’t begin until 40 minutes into the picture, and while it’s somewhat slow going until then, the film’s composure pays off. Lee makes a wise decision to spend time with his set up. The fable-like tale begins and concludes in bookended fashion, with an author (Spall) struggling from writer’s block, tracking down an older Pi (Khan) on the advice of a mutual acquaintance, who shared that the elder Indian man has an unbelievable story to tell. Wise and mature with a serene demeanor, Pi invites the author into his home and tells him his life story: how a young boy named Piscine (after a French swimming pool — Piscine Molitor Patel), became Pi and grew up in Pondicherry, India (akin to the French Riviera of the country) in the 1970s.

Pi’s family owns a zoo and animals are a part of their daily lives. The inquisitive boy explores various faiths (Christianity, Hinduism and Islam) in trying to understand the world, while his secular and more orderly father tells him to listen to rational thought as a true guide through life. Curious and searching to a fault, Pi learns one of his most important lessons when he attempts to feed the family zoo’s Bengal tiger (named Richard Parker because of a clerical error). Aghast, his father scolds Pi, lecturing him that the creature is an animal with no soul. “He is not your friend!” he admonishes while he forces the boy to watch what happens when the family goat is put near his cage.

Months later when financial woes trouble the region, Pi’s father ( Adil Hussain ) decides to pack up and move to Canada; taking the zoo’s animals with him on ocean liner with the family, knowing he can sell them in North America. This section is told in a gentile fashion which is deliberately paced (read: kinda slow), but soon the picture picks up steam and actually begins.

Tragedy strikes when a disastrous sea storm of cataclysmic proportions rocks the Pacific, and after a dazzling and valiant fight, sinks the gigantic tanker to the bottom of the ocean. Visually, this sequence is breathtaking, on par with James Cameron’s “Titanic,” and arguably more terrifying due to the violence of the tempest that attacks the seas and boat. All that survives in a huge lifeboat is teenage Pi ( Suraj Sharma ), a Zebra, a hyena, eventually the ferocious Bengal tiger Richard Parker, and a gentle orangutan. One by one they pick each other off until all that’s left standing is Pi and what becomes a fierce adversary, Richard Parker, that he has to avoid, dodge and battle on a daily basis along with the elements, starvation, and these impossible circumstances.

A fully-realized creation, it’s rather astonishing how realistic and life-like Richard Parker is. He’s a living, breathing element of the story who eventually becomes the emotional crux of the tale once the animal and Pi come to an type of understanding and even, a strange friendship and connection, however tenuous because of the animals feralness. Played by newcomer Suraj Sharma, Pi doesn’t seem particularly special at first, but when the character is put through the paces, the thesp pulls from emotional reserves that are crucial to the story; more impressive when one realizes he is generally acting alongside nothing.

While perhaps not quite a s lam dunk  Oscar contender (as many pundits are clearly wondering), it’s pretty close, and there’s still lots to love and admire from “Life of Pi.” The film is not without its problems, as superficial as they ultimately may be. One would be remiss if they didn’t not address how the told-in-flashback narrative threatens to undermine the entire picture and at first this device is rather groan-worthy. But ultimately, it’s not a dealbreaker. As ‘Pi’ progresses, the conceit fades into the background and a crucial emotional moment takes place in the picture’s conclusion that perhaps explains why it could only be presented in this fashion. Additionally, as said, the setup will require some patience, and while the story itself also doesn’t reinvent the wheel, like other similar tales of survival (“ Castaway ” being the most memorable example), “Life Of Pi” thematically focuses on the endurance of the soul and the spirit; the need to never lose hope and thus survive even the most brutal of ordeals. Several of the film’s elements are hackneyed on the surface, the aforementioned flashback structure and the  “if you don’t lose hope, life will be beautiful” platitudes, but Lee goes beyond clichés with a curious, warm and wondrously beatific approach to the “letting go” philosophy that reverberates. In short, its strengths far outweigh its minor problems. Making the familiar feel universal, Lee digs deep with every facet of filmmaking – sound, vision and poignant texture — to create an engrossing cinematic experience that is ultimately emotionally involving and rich. 

While its journey to the big screen saw many directors come and go over the years, and even leaving more wondering if the book could even be faithfully told, Ang Lee has delivered and then some. Deeply resonant and soulful, “Life Of Pi, is a harrowing journey of survival, self-discovery and connection that will inspire and awe. [A-]

This is a reprint of our review that ran during the New York Film Festival.

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Life of Pi review – the animals are the stars in this puppet-powered show

Wyndham’s theatre, London This stage version of Yann Martel’s novel is exquisitely designed but the wonder leaks away in flat-footed storytelling

L ife of Pi had a first life as a Booker prize-winning novel by Yann Martel and a second as an Oscar-winning film by Ang Lee. Both were utterly captivating. Now comes playwright Lolita Chakrabarti’s stage spectacular ( first presented in Sheffield in 2019 ) about Piscine “Pi” Patel, the zookeeper’s son from Pondicherry who claims to have survived a shipwreck in a life-raft with a Bengal tiger in tow.

The magic here lies firmly in aesthetics, from the teeming menagerie of large-scale puppets, exquisitely designed by Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell, to visual effects that surge, dazzle and undulate like ocean waves (stage design by Tim Hatley with video design by Andrzej Goulding and lighting by Tim Lutkin).

The script and characterisation are flat-footed by comparison: “I’ve had a terrible trip,” says Pi from his hospital bed at the start (the framing device here is different from the book and film). It is meant to be wry but, like much of the dialogue, lands with a thud.

Martel’s original, unreliable narration left enough space for us to decide if Pi’s story was one of hope, faith and tiger-taming or of survivor’s guilt, trauma and delusion. His subtle explorations of truth and the necessary comforts of make-believe are shoe-horned in as soundbites about God, the beauty of the world and storytelling.

The visual effects seem to compete with, and ultimately drown out, the quieter, more philosophical elements of the drama, not leaving enough room for Pi’s existential rumination, which is key to his tale.

As Pi, Hiran Abeysekera looks every inch the puckish man-boy and is incredibly light on his feet. He plays him as a 17-year-old survivor with PTSD in hospital, and as a slightly maniacal castaway on the boat. He is good at conjuring alarm in whooping, adrenalised highs but seems tense and overwrought in the softer moments.

The characters on the whole are vividly drawn but ironed to a cartoonish flatness, and the tone between them is barking and shrill. Pi’s father (Nicholas Khan) has a touch of Basil Fawlty, his mother (Mina Anwar) and sister (Payal Mistry) lack distinction and ancillary characters feel like cardboard cut-outs. As a children’s show, the jokes hold but an older audience feels the lack of a finer, more subtle script to square up to the sophisticated visuals.

Still, under Max Webster’s direction, the stage is full of energy and surprise. “Once upon a time,” says Pi, as he takes us on the first of many flashbacks, which transform the stage in seconds. There is a flurry of butterflies, a starry sky, iridescent shoals of fish and immersive storms that wrack the extremities of the stage.

Zebras, giraffes, hyenas and turtles are manipulated sublimely, transporting us to the family zoo and then to the high seas. The first sight of Richard Parker, the tiger, is a breathtaking moment and emulates the CGI effects in Lee’s film. The life-raft rises out of the floor and the back screen cracks open from its middle, like a suitcase, as the family sets sail for Canada. These animals and effects are a wonder to behold and become the real stars of this show.

At Wyndham’s theatre, London , until 27 February.

• Lolita Chakrabarti
• Yann Martel

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• Twentieth Century Fox

Summary Based on the best-selling novel by Yann Martel, is a magical adventure story centering on Pi Patel, the precocious son of a zookeeper. Dwellers in Pondicherry, India, the family decides to move to Canada, hitching a ride on a huge freighter. After a shipwreck, Pi is found adrift in the Pacific Ocean on a 26-foot lifeboat with a zebra, a ... Read More

Directed By : Ang Lee

Written By : Yann Martel, David Magee

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Life Of Pi Review

20 Dec 2012

126 minutes

We should probably stop deeming any book ‘unfilmable’. All the big ones that seemed impossible are toppling: The English Patient, Naked Lunch, Cloud Atlas, Watchmen, The Lord Of The Rings. From now on, let’s just trust that a sufficiently and necessarily peculiar mind can draw a visual story out of any novel. There are several things about Yann Martel’s Life Of Pi that suggest it couldn’t be realised on screen: it’s largely set on a small boat adrift in the ocean, inhabited only by a young man and a tiger...well, really, do you need further reasons? It requires a tiger that will follow direction and a way of making bobbing about in water interesting for close to two hours, with only one person speaking. Actually, what it needs is Ang Lee, who makes this enormously complicated film look like the simplest thing in the world.

As with almost anything that looks simple, it’s taken a lot of work to get here. It’s been almost a decade since Fox first acquired the rights to adapt Martel’s book, back in 2003, and since then M. Night Shyamalan, Alfonso Cuarón and Jean-Pierre Jeunet have all dipped their feet in its treacherous waters before deciding it wasn’t for them. Even Lee has been working on the film since 2009, with writer David Magee, whose script untangles Martel’s story with enormous elegance and gentle humour. That time has clearly been used well to create something that as a spectacle seems unlike anything previously seen in cinema (technically, it could not have been made ten years ago) and as a piece of storytelling unfolds just about perfectly.

The story starts in Pondicherry, India, where Piscine Patel, named after a French swimming pool and compelled to change his name to a mathematical constant in order to staunch persistent bullying (it’s not nearly so twee as it sounds), lives in a zoo with his family. As the zoo business dries up, the Patel family decide to move to Canada, flog their animals and start a new life. But a storm sinks the ship carrying them to their new home and leaves Pi adrift in a lifeboat with first a few, then even fewer animals, his chief companion being the zoo’s tiger, Richard Parker, an animal who’d prefer a large meal to a shipmate. This story is told by a middle-aged Pi to a writer (Rafe Spall), in a present-day setting that bookends the film.

Lee is always in complete control of the story. This feels like the work of a director not only at his most confident and creative but also enjoying himself more than he ever has before. Typically, even when his stories are those of passion there is something a little chilly in the grace of Lee’s films. Think of The Ice Storm, Brokeback Mountain or even Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and they’re largely characterised by aching restraint with occasional bursts of emotion. Life Of Pi bursts early on and keeps expanding.

With the flat ocean providing what is essentially a blank canvas, Lee, along with cinematographer Claudio Miranda and an effects team who cannot be praised enough, runs wild with imagery, such as a whale looming up through waters full of glowing jellyfish, Pi silhouetted against the drowned ship or the motionless water creating a perfect mirror image of the sky above. You could rip almost any shot off the screen and hang it in a gallery. And Lee uses 3D — a tool many directors wield like a sledgehammer — in much the same way James Cameron did with Avatar or Martin Scorsese with Hugo. Lee, like those directors, considers each shot on three planes, rather than just framing a standard scene then thrusting something at the audience to justify the additional cost. But all this beauty is not merely for beauty’s sake. This is most definitely a film about something. In a sense, it’s a film about everything.

Belief is at the story’s centre, which sounds dreadfully homeworky and preachy but it truly isn’t. It’s throwing out questions, not pretending to have the answers. Though religion is a repeated touchstone, this doesn’t seem to be a film about believing in any particular god — in a smartly written dinner scene Pi explains exactly why he chooses to believe in all gods, from all religions — it’s about believing in something, be it God or science. There’s a sort of magic in both, so it just depends whether you like your magic tricks explained or prefer to believe in the ethereal. Imagine the work of Terrence Malick, but with added laughs.

There’s a degree of that confusing magic in Lee’s direction, too. There are a number of scenes in which it is all but impossible to fathom how they were achieved. One of these is the sinking of the ship carrying Pi and his family, which stands proud alongside anything you might have seen in any summer blockbuster. As it goes from the flooded bowels of the ship to Pi leaping into a lifeboat, which swiftly plummets into the squalling waves thanks to a fractious zebra, then crashing about above and below the water, it’s impossible to see the joins. Initially you’re trying to work out how it was done, but then you’re just thrilled that it was. There are numerous similar moments.

A great deal is asked of Suraj Sharma in his first role. Three actors play Pi at different ages and each is worthy of high praise, but Sharma, as the teenage Pi, is unforgettable. For about three quarters of the film he is playing to nothing. At least, it must be assumed that he is; the effects work on the tiger is so utterly convincing that although there is surely a real tiger used in some scenes it would take a very well trained eye, or the tiger’s own mother, to pick it out. So this is really a one-man show for Sharma and he blasts it. Whether screaming in fury or saying nothing at all, he never hits a false note. It’s a blazing debut.

Life Of Pi exists on the bleeding edge of technology and every penny of its budget is on screen, yet it isn’t a film from which you’re likely to take memories of a single money shot or sequence. There’s too much going on to separate isolated moments; it’s all impressive pieces in a unified puzzle. This is a director laying out both the world around us, and the possibilities of cinema to present it, and asking: isn’t this amazing?

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• DVD & Streaming
• Action/Adventure , Drama , Mystery/Suspense , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

• November 21, 2012
• Suraj Sharma as Pi Patel; Irrfan Khan as Older Pi; Ayush Tandon as Young Pi; Tabu as Pi's Mother; Adil Hussain as Pi's Father; Shravanthi Sainath as Pi's Girlfriend; Rafe Spall as The Writer

Home Release Date

• March 12, 2013

Distributor

• 20th Century Fox

Movie Review

It is Noah’s Ark in miniature—a lifeboat floating on the skin of the sea when the world has been lost.

Built for 30, the lifeboat holds two: Pi, a Hindu/Christian/Muslim teen who never got to say goodbye to his girlfriend; and Richard Parker, a hungry Bengal tiger who doesn’t care. There used to be more. A hyena. A zebra with a broken leg. An orangutan named Orange Juice. All are gone now, killed and consumed. Pi and Parker are alone. They and God.

When life shrinks to the space of a lifeboat holding a hungry tiger, it takes on a new character. Each day for Pi becomes an exercise in survival: finding food, catching rainwater, staying away from Richard Parker’s claws. He marks his days on the side of the boat, numbering the sunsets with a knife. Slowly he trains the tiger, hoping his mastery over the beast will keep him alive.

And as the boat floats through days and weeks and months, a bond grows between Pi and Parker. “My fear of him keeps me alert,” Pi says. “Tending to his needs gives me purpose.” This is not friendship, not love. But it is something precious and real.

They have no doves to search for land. Their flare gun is spent, and neither their resources nor resourcefulness can last forever. And yet Pi believes they float in the cup of God’s hand. Perhaps He will carry them home.

Positive Elements

The movie never tells us how long Pi and Richard Parker are adrift in that lifeboat, but the book on which its based (written by Yann Martel) informs us that they spend 227 days together. More than eight months. To survive that long requires something special, and Pi shows us that he’s special indeed.

Though he has no real skills to speak of, Pi quickly bones up on the essentials with a survival handbook he finds with a few supplies. Naturally, the booklet has little to say about surviving a shipwreck with a Bengal tiger, but he figures out the basics of that too, patching together a raft that floats outside the lifeboat. He spends a good chunk of time there, fishing and collecting rainwater, throwing the occasional meal to the tiger. So we certainly have to laud Pi’s resourcefulness.

But Pi’s far more than a pragmatic survivor. The handbook exhorts him to “never lose hope,” and he doesn’t. It’s that hope, in fact, that buoys the boat as much as its wood does, and it’s Pi’s sometimes unreasoning sense of grace that allows the story to sail.

When in desperation Richard Parker leaps from the boat to try to catch a fish, it would seem as though Pi’s problems have been solved: Just let the big cat drown out there. But Pi can’t. He finds a way to save the tiger’s life (though the tiger would never show the same consideration), offering grace to an animal that certainly doesn’t deserve it and will never fully repay it. When both seem to be on the verge of death, Pi sits down next to Parker and puts his furry head on his lap, stroking him, staying with him to what he presumes will be their end.

Spiritual Elements

The movie begins with a writer visiting an adult Pi after hearing that the man had “a story that would make me believe in God.” But while the potent sense of spirituality that pervades this tale is Life of Pi’ s greatest strength, it’s also what makes it deeply problematic.

Pi, as I mentioned when I first introduced him, worships at multiple altars of faith. He was raised Hindu, absorbing the religion’s colorful myths as another boy might the stories of superheroes. Several Hindu gods are named, images of them are seen, and Pi explicitly prays to one. But when his brother dares him to drink some holy water from a local church, a priest spots him, observes that he must be thirsty and gives him a glass of less-sanctified water (an echo of Christ being the Living Water, perhaps). From then on, Pi’s fascinated by Jesus and fervently embraces who He is and what He represents—while thanking the Hindu god Vishnu for bringing Christ into his life. Later, he comes to appreciate Islam, too—the way the Arabic prayers roll off the tongue, the comfort of the repetitive kneeling and bowing.

His father, a science-driven man who declares that all religion is “darkness,” kids Pi, saying that if he converts to just three more religions, every day of the week will be some sort of holiday. More seriously, he exhorts him to also pray at the altar to reason. Every decision Pi makes, his father insists, must be based in science and rationality.

At the beginning of his lifeboat journey, Pi calls out, “God, I give myself to You. I am Your vessel. Whatever comes I want to know. Show me.” He thanks God for all the hardships he endures, for Richard Parker and, when he feels he’s about to die, for his life—telling the Almighty that he’s looking forward to seeing his family again. During a storm he grows angry, asking God what more He could possibly want or take from him.

[ Spoiler Warning ] When both Pi and Richard Parker are close to death, their boat drifts to a floating island that’s completely edible and covered with meerkats. But at night, the island reverses its nature. Instead of feeding visitors, it feeds on them. (All the meerkats flee to the trees at sundown as even the pools of fresh water turn to acid.) Pi interprets both manifestations as gifts from God. He says, God “gave me rest … and a sign to continue the journey.”

[ Bigger Spoiler Warning ] When Pi is finally rescued, the Japanese company that owned the cargo ship that sank sends representatives to Pi to find out what happened. Pi tells them the story. Then, when they express incredulity, he tells them another one: In this version, there are no animals on the boat—only people who, it would appear, correspond in some way to the animals. An injured Buddhist has a broken leg, just like the zebra. A vile cook stands in for the hyena. The orangutan, in this version, is Pi’s own mother. All are killed. Some are eaten.

If we believe the cannibalistic story, we dismiss the Richard Parker story as some sort of psychological device crafted by Pi to deal with the horror of it all. But if we can believe the first telling, we embrace the idea that, with God, all things are possible: That a floating, carnivorous island is a gift not unlike Manna from heaven. If we believe that both stories as true, then the first—like a myth or parable—gives the second meaning and resonance.

This uncertainty makes for a fascinating movie that deeply mulls faith while offering other extraordinary but ancillary messages. But without proper mooring, a casual viewer might take away a couple of dangerous messages: One, that all faiths lead to the same God, and two, religion infuses meaning into our lives regardless of whether it’s literally true or not. The latter might be akin to embracing a figurative resurrection of Christ (in that He lives in our hearts) while suggesting that a literal resurrection is beside the point. Christianity rejects both of these messages: Jesus unreservedly tells us He is the only way to God, and the Apostle Paul declares that without a literal resurrection, we are to be pitied above all men.

Sexual Content

None. Pi does take a fancy to a Hindu dancer, and the two spend some chaste time together.

Violent Content

The natural world is not a gentle place, and we see evidence of that here. It’s a lesson that Pi learns well before he even boards that ill-fated ship. After Pi’s father (who runs a zoo) catches his son trying to feed Richard Parker a slab of meat (through a set of bars), he decides to teach Pi a lesson: He ties a live goat to the bars and forces his son to watch as the tiger kills and drags the beast through. (The camera cuts away from the fatal strike. Then we see the dead animal in Parker’s jaws.)

On the lifeboat, things get far, far worse. The zebra’s obviously lame, and the hyena begins attacking the huge beast, nipping on its flanks as Pi and the zebra both scream. (Moviegoers get off easy, though. In the book, the hyena begins eating the zebra while it’s still alive.) Then the hyena and orangutan get into it. Though Orange Juice stuns the hyena with a blow to the head, the beast recovers and kills the orangutan. And when the hyena starts crawling for Pi, Richard Parker suddenly reveals himself—lunging at the hyena and killing it instantly. Parker later snacks on a meerkat. We catch a brief glimpse of what appears to be a hippo being attacked by sharks. A sperm whale tangles with a giant squid. Pi pounds a fish with a hammer to knock it out/kill it, apologizing profusely to it afterward.

We see the cargo ship sink, killing many. Pi’s father and a cook nearly come to blows.

Crude or Profane Language

Pi’s real name is Piscine Molitor Patel. His schoolmates mock the pronunciation of its first syllable.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Other negative elements.

Pi urinates on part of the boat as a way to mark his territory and keep Richard Parker away. The tiger, in response, sprays both Pi’s region and Pi himself with a urine blast of his own. Several animals get seasick; we hear them retch and see the hyena vomit in the boat.

Life of Pi is unlike any movie I’ve ever seen. It is both beautiful and ugly, profound and problematic.

It is rich in conversation starters, and it rebuts, powerfully, the idea that faith is “darkness.” It speaks eloquently to the core of what it means to be faithful—to surrender yourself to God, to trust Him, to allow Him to use you as He will. It hints that we should always be on the lookout for miracles, be it a floating carnivorous island or simply the blessing of having food to eat for another day.

You could say, then, that Life of Pi contains snippets that might be used as sermon illustrations in almost any Christian church in the world. But it’s telling that Pi’s first religion was Hinduism, because there’s something very Eastern about the manifestation of spirituality here. Maybe that’s because when you’ve grown up with 33 million gods, incorporating one more (Christ) into the pantheon isn’t that big of a deal to Pi.

Most Christians will agree with Pi’s rational, religion-free father when he says that believing in everything is “the same thing as not believing anything at all.” Indeed, theologically, the idea that all religions are true is simply not tenable. When we accept Christ as Savior, we accept Him as our only Savior—and we accept Him through a blend of not just what we feel is right, but what is historically, literally true.

Life of Pi isn’t interested in any of that.

To hear Paul Asay talk about Life of Pi on the Official Plugged In Podcast, access Episode #177 from our Podcast page .

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Movie Review

Plenty of Gods, but Just One Fellow Passenger

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By A.O. Scott

• Nov. 20, 2012

It is spoiling nothing to disclose that Pi Patel, the younger son of an Indian zoo owner, survives a terrible shipwreck during a storm in the Pacific Ocean. That much you know from the very first scenes of “Life of Pi,” Ang Lee’s 3-D film adaptation of the wildly popular, arguably readable novel by Yann Martel . A middle-aged Pi (the reliably engaging Irrfan Khan) tells the tale of his earlier life to a wide-eyed Canadian novelist (Rafe Spall), so we know that he made it through whatever ordeal we are about to witness.

Whether a viewer’s good will can survive until the shipwreck is another matter. The older Pi introduces us to his younger self (played as a boy by Ayush Tandon and as a teenager by Suraj Sharma), whose life is so besotted by wonder that those in the audience who do not share his slack-jawed piety might think that something is wrong with him, or themselves.

Named Piscine Molitor after his uncle’s favorite Parisian swimming pool — he adopts the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet as a nickname to avoid schoolyard teasing — Pi grows up in Pondicherry, a serene and picturesque city in South India. His childhood unfolds in this colorful setting, beautifully filmed by Claudio Miranda, inflected with a hint of exoticism by Mychael Danna’s score and graced with the presence of a handful of excellent Indian actors, notably Adil Hussain and Tabu as Pi’s parents.

Young Pi’s existence — and also that of the gentle, professorial man he will grow into — is dominated by religion. Pi’s story, the Canadian writer is told, “will make you believe in God,” and Pi himself is infused with a godliness that knows no doctrinal limits.

The Hindu deities “were like superheroes to me,” he recalls, and at a tender age he began collecting heroes from other faiths, an all-around holiness fan reluctant to declare a rooting interest in any particular team. He likes them all. After receiving a quick précis of the Gospels from a kindly priest, Pi offers up a prayer that summarizes his amiable, inclusive approach to the notoriously divisive subject of theology: “Thank you, Vishnu , for introducing me to Christ.”

No problem! He will go on to embrace Islam and study kabbalah. Thousands of years of sectarian conflict, it seems, can be resolved with a smile and a hushed, reverent tone of voice.

“If you believe in everything, you will end up not believing in anything at all,” warns Pi’s dad, who is committed to the supremacy of reason and who is, as rationalists often are in the imaginations of the devout, a bit of a grouch about it. But this piece of skeptical paternal wisdom identifies a serious flaw in “Life of Pi,” which embraces religion without quite taking it seriously, and is simultaneously about everything and very little indeed. Instead of awe, it gives us “awww, how sweet.”

Until the Bengal tiger shows up, and thank the divinity of your choice for that. Or, rather, thank Mr. Lee and the gods of digital imagery, who conjure up a beast — named Richard Parker, for mildly amusing reasons — of almost miraculous vividness. His eyes, his fur, the rippling of his muscles and the skeleton beneath his skin, all of it is so perfectly rendered that you will swear that Richard Parker is real.

What is and isn’t real — what stories can be believed and why — turns out to be an important theme of “Life of Pi,” albeit one that is explored with the same glibness that characterizes the film’s pursuit of spiritual questions. But Mr. Lee and his screenwriter, David Magee, have the good sense to put all of that aside for a while and focus on the young man, the tiger and the deep blue sea.

Mr. Sharma is a gangly, likable presence, with an emotional expressiveness that makes him good company, and sufficient humility to not mind being upstaged by a computer-generated kitty. Tales of lonely survival have a durable, almost primal appeal, and the middle section of “Life of Pi” confidently clears a space for itself alongside “Robinson Crusoe” and Robert Zemeckis’s “Cast Away.”

Part of the appeal of these stories is their intense preoccupation with practical matters, and the problems Pi must solve form the dramatic heart of the film. How will he secure food and clean water? How will he stay sane and hopeful? How will he avoid turning into Richard Parker’s dinner?

Behind the Tiger

View Slide Show ›

These questions are answered with equal measures of wit and wonder, and with only occasional moments of god-bothering. Unlike just about every other cartoon animal you can think of, Richard Parker, despite his name, is never anthropomorphized, never pulled out of his essentially predatory nature. The relationship that develops between him and Pi is therefore a complicated one, involving fear and competition as well as (on Pi’s end, at least) compassion and love.

It unfolds in a setting that is one of the great achievements of digital cinema, and a reminder that the eclectic Mr. Lee is, among other things, an exuberant and inventive visual artist. (In this respect it is an apt companion to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” speaking of tigers.) There are images in “Life of Pi” that are so beautiful, so surprising, so right that I hesitate to describe them. Suffice it to say that the simple, elemental facts of sky, sea and animal life are captured with sweetness and sublimity.

The problem, as I have suggested, is that the narrative frame that surrounds these lovely pictures complicates and undermines them. The novelist and the older Pi are eager to impose interpretations on the tale of the boy and the beast, but also committed to keeping those interpretations as vague and general as possible. And also, more disturbingly, to repress the darker implications of the story, as if the presence of cruelty and senseless death might be too much for anyone to handle.

Perhaps they are, but insisting on the benevolence of the universe in the way that “Life of Pi” does can feel more like a result of delusion or deceit than of earnest devotion. The movie invites you to believe in all kinds of marvelous things, but it also may cause you to doubt what you see with your own eyes — or even to wonder if, in the end, you have seen anything at all.

“Life of Pi” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). Violence, mostly bloodless, inflicted by and upon digital animals.

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‘Life of Pi’ (2012) Movie Review

By Brad Brevet

Ang Lee ‘s Life of Pi , based on Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name, is first and foremost a spiritual journey for its title character. A God-loving zookeeper’s son, Pi ( Suraj Sharma ) is emigrating with his family from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship with the animals stored below when a violent storm sends the ship to the bottom of the ocean. Pi survives aboard a lifeboat, which he shares with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a massive Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. What follows is Pi’s story of enlightenment and survival.

Like the book, the film is told as a flashback with a twenty-years older Pi ( Irrfan Khan ) relaying his story to an author ( Rafe Spall ) that has been told Pi had a story that would make him believe in God.

God, in this instance, should most likely be placed in quotes because for Pi there is no definitive version as he chooses to practice not only his native Hinduism, but Christianity and Islam as well. He’s a lover of stories and he’s a boy of feelings and his belief in God is one that can’t very well be confined to one religion.

So, what exactly does it mean this story will make us believe in God?

I took it as a reference to an idea, a feeling and a presence more than any one, singularly specific all-powerful being, though even that could be up for debate. This “idea” also manifests itself as a preference and a choice, which comes to light as the story moves into its third act, asking what you choose, or prefer, to believe when faced with the harshness of reality when questioning the unbelievable.

In this sense, Life of Pi is really all about what you make it. It’s a film that will probably move some people to tears while others may be left stone-faced and unmoved. I fall somewhere in-between.

I marveled at Ang Lee’s visuals as this is a film that wouldn’t be nearly as effective had Lee and cinematographer Claudio Miranda not composed their shots in such a painterly fashion. It’s simply beautiful and some shots will leave you breathless as Mychael Danna ‘s score swells and the waves come crashing down.

You become absorbed in the story, which can also be attributed to this being the first time I’ve seen a non-IMAX 3-D film and can say the use of 3-D actually has an impact on the story. The majority of stereoscopic films add depth to an image without inviting the viewer in, whereas Life of Pi brings the story to you.

I attribute much of this to the barren, watery landscape of much of the picture. The 3-D, in fact, can sometimes be attributed to giving life to a story where it tends to drag. The film opens with Pi at home in India, dabbling in a variety of religions and introducing us to his family. The majority of the rest of the story is set at sea with Pi and Richard Parker fighting to survive amid powerful storms, flying fish and whales in a sea of jellyfish illuminated by the moonlight. It’s a breathtaking picture in large part, but I can’t say I walked away as moved as I felt I was intended to be.

The message that comes across in the end is one to take note of, but I can’t say I’ve found myself dwelling on it since leaving the theater. For me, Life of Pi is more of a uniquely composed vision that’s a bit more meditative than I felt was necessary. It dwells far too long on Pi’s plight at sea, running almost 10-15 minutes too long with an island sequence in particular marking the moment it began to lose my attention, largely because I felt it had reached its emotional climax only minutes earlier.

All of that said, it all really comes down to one word for me, and if you haven’t read the book or seen the movie you may want to stop here and read the final paragraphs after you’ve seen it.

Upon surviving the ordeal Pi is asked by two members of the Japanese Ministry of Transport to tell the story of what happened to the ship that sank. Pi tells them the story as seen in the film, which they don’t accept and ask him to tell them a story they can believe. So he tells them a story where the animal inhabitants in the original story are now people that were aboard the ship, including the ship’s ill-tempered cook ( Gerard Depardieu ) and Pi’s mother. The horrific story involves murder and cannibalism. It’s a story where all hope is lost and the question of “What is the point of surviving if this is the world we live in?” becomes entirely valid.

After telling the story we flash back to the present where the older Pi asks the author interviewing him, “ What story do you prefer? ” The author replies, “The one with the tiger.”

The phrasing of the question immediately struck me. The word “prefer” I found to be an odd choice. Why not ask, “What story do you believe?” or even “What story do you prefer to believe?”

In short, to prefer the story with the tiger is to prefer Pi’s family died in a watery grave and the murderous and ugly side of human nature was never given the chance to show its face, substituted with the will to survive in the face of the most extreme conditions.

To prefer the gruesome story of murder and cannibalism is to say all you can really understand and accept as reality in this world is the ugly side of humanity.

So which story do you prefer? Well obviously the story with the tiger, but with that answer comes some serious repercussions, especially if you rephrase the question to ask which story you believe .

You can prefer a story that sounds too good to be true because it is more appealing than the actual truth, but can you believe it? Whether it’s murder and cannibalism or a tiger killing a goat as its next meal, we would prefer softer more delicate realities, but are they believable? As evidenced in this story all harsh realities are softened throughout Pi’s journey. The moment Richard Parker kills a goat isn’t shown, the story of what may or may not have happened aboard that lifeboat is harsh to a point, but any and all death is never seen on screen. Are we really meant to turn our attention away from reality so as to create the illusion that the world is a better place than it actually may be?

With that I will say I believe the horror story Pi tells second to be the true story, but not because the story with the tiger is so unbelievable, but because the second story is told with such immediacy, emotion and description. You may say, “But so was the story of the tiger,” to which I would say, “Yes, the mind can come up with some pretty impressive hallucinations when facing such a traumatic experience. Not to forget, Pi’s asking what story you ‘prefer’ is a big wink in my opinion.”

I love it when films leave things open for interpretation and discussion and that’s where Life of Pi earns my respect beyond its tremendous visuals, but in the end Pi doesn’t ask which story we prefer by accident. The word “prefer” is intentional and as a result I felt it throws a wrench in everything it aimed to accomplish.

Visually it’s a masterpiece, but when it comes to looking at it on a deeper level I found too many things caused it to unravel.

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Ang Lee interweaves adventure and spirituality brilliantly. And if you still don't know what meditation feels like, Watch Life of Pi, it is therapeutic and profound.

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reshmasultana 473 days ago

The best movie I have ever watched. Such a different movie form other that makes it unique 

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Review by Brian Eggert November 22, 2012

In Ang Lee’s Life of Pi , a marriage between spiritual faith and the wonder of the natural world offers audiences a reflective parable for religious understanding and even the very nature of storytelling. The harrowing tale involves an Indian boy and a Bengal tiger on a lifeboat in the Pacific for several months, and as they battle each other for territorial superiority, the human and the animal begin to understand each other. Through their exchange, the screenplay by David Magee, based on Yann Martel’s 2001 novel, meditates on how as individuals, we see the world as we choose to see it—whether that be the emotions we observe in animal behavior, the meanings we project onto events in our lives, or how we amplify our experiences for effect. Through the course of the film, we take part in a beautiful worldview, rich with visual spectacles and a spiritual epiphany that even the most devout cynics will cherish.

The film opens in Pondicherry, a former French colony in India, where the family of our young protagonist, Piscene Patel (played at age 12 by Ayush Tandon), runs a zoo. Schoolboys remind him that his name, taken from the French word for “swimming pool,” sounds like “pissing,” and so he changes it to Pi and establishes his nickname by memorizing the mathematical constant’s neverending tail. An inquisitive sort, Pi was raised Hindu, but to understand God, he explores Christianity and Islam as well, adopting trademarks from each religion for his own uses, much to his strict father’s dismay. When Pi’s father must sell the family zoo and the animals, he books passage to Canada aboard a Japanese ship. Pi—now a teenager and played by Suraj Sharma, an inexperienced actor who shows astounding range, is forced to leave his home and the young dancer (Shravanthi Sainath) with whom he’s fallen in love. In rough seas over the Marinas Trench, the Japanese ship sinks, Pi’s family dies, and he’s left on a 20-foot lifeboat with a single rat, a ravenous hyena, an injured zebra, a protective orangutan, and a large Bengal tiger known as “Richard Parker.”

When the inevitable collision of hunger and territorial clashes subside, Pi is left floating on a makeshift raft connected by rope to the main lifeboat, which Richard Parker has conquered. Two hundred twenty-seven days pass as man and beast attempt to coexist, and the film carefully spells out how Pi and Richard Parker form a unique trust over battles for food and space under the lifeboat’s protective tarp. Together they witness tremendous sights, from a wave of flying fish to a bioluminescent ocean surface breached by a whale, from another massive storm to a green living island populated by meerkats. Structurally, Pi’s adventure is bookended by modern-day scenes in Canada, where a wise middle-aged Pi (Irrfan Khan) recounts his adventure to a skeptical Canadian author (Rafe Spall) looking for his next book’s inspiration. At the very beginning and end, the film alternates between scenes in Pi’s contemporary home and flashbacks to his life’s story, while the central piece of the story remains Pi’s account of his survival.

At no point in the film does Lee betray the viewer’s suspension of disbelief, despite the vast use of computerized special effects employed to make these otherwise inconceivable movie moments come to life. The effects used to render the zoo animals throughout the picture are nothing short of amazing, particularly the CGI employed for Richard Parker. Although many scenes using four different tigers were shot, much of Richard Parker’s behavior would have been impossible for trainers to safely allow for a live animal, and the integration of real-life and computer-generated imagery is flawless. Wild attacks and even a seasick tiger are realized brilliantly, while the film’s sinking ship sequence contains a haunting exquisiteness. Shot in various international locales in Montreal and India, the production required Lee’s crew to build a massive tank in Taiwan for the sea sequences, each augmented by a vast amount of artificially designed imagery. The splendor inhabiting every frame of Pi’s seafaring survival story displays a painterly quality added to the horizon where the water and sky meet, and therein reflect one another in fantastic, illusory ways.

Lee’s visual mastery also makes the best use of the 3D device yet, even better than James Cameron’s Avatar, or any number of stop-motion animation projects to showcase the effect. It’s not that Lee sends animals reaching out to touch his audience; rather, he gives the adventure depth and space. Water seems to exist on an expansive surface, and with Pi’s lifeboat often a speck on this open plane, Lee truly places his viewer in the scene in ways no filmmaker has conceived before. At other times, Lee manipulates his aspect ratios to better frame a scene or action. At one point, the rectangle frame becomes a pan & scan square with Pi’s boat in the center, accentuating his isolation in the open sea. During the flying fish stampede, the film’s 1.85:1 frame widens to 2.40:1, and we follow a daredevil tuna chasing after its prey, the hind fin just bleeding out of the frame’s margins to enhance the effect. Such details occur throughout Life of Pi , but they never take precedence over the spiritual significance of the story.

Because of its more extravagant elements, Martel’s source text was considered technically unfilmable for years, and after several other directors left the project (among them M. Night Shyamalan, Alfonso Cuarón, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet), the pronounced challenges attracted the Taiwan-born American director. Lee’s diversity of projects begins with cherished period dramas Sense and Sensibility (1995) and The Ice Storm (1997), continues through his martial arts reinvention of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), and achieves rare explorations of intimacy in Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Lust, Caution (2007). But then, Lee is also capable of realizing grand epics such as the underseen Civil War piece Ride with the Devil (1999) or bringing a cartoony quality to expressive superheroes with Hulk (2003). He finds a perfect balance between the emotional profundity of his past efforts and his own visual ambition in Life of Pi , a project that sets a bold new standard for the use of 3D and CGI but also has a thoughtful and understanding message inside an incredible visual experience.

Early in Life of Pi, the Canadian author is told Pi’s story will make him believe in God, but perhaps a better assessment is that this tale will invoke a sense of understanding toward religions and stimulate an exploration of faith. The ways in which this is accomplished in the film an audience should discover for themselves. But when Pi’s inevitable survival comes to pass, the film ends by asking questions about what we have seen and how we interpret what has happened. What this critic has seen is a marvelous piece of visual poetry with insights that require contemplation long after the visual awe has subsided. Lee has created a superbly balanced motion picture that moves special effects and 3D beyond the realm of pure entertainment augmentation; where other films use such technical modes for thrills alone, Lee creates a breathless experience both visceral and philosophical—and also unforgettable.

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Screen Rant

Life of pi ending explained.

Life Of Pi is a celebrated movie, but many are confused by the ending. Here's an explanation of what really happened in the film (and the book).

• The ending of Life of Pi leaves viewers questioning the true meaning of the story, as the movie tells two different versions of his adventure at sea.
• The film stays close to the source material, with Pi's story ending in a Mexican hospital bed, but the details and interpretation are left up to the viewer's preference.
• The ending challenges viewers to consider the themes of faith, belief, and the power of storytelling, as Pi's goal was to make others believe in something greater than themselves.

Life of Pi explained that Pi ended his story in a Mexican hospital bed, but the 2012 movie's ending was also a little confusing about the truth of what happened to Pi and Richard Parker. Ang Lee's Life of Pi earned critical acclaim along with solid box office numbers. However, for every mention of Life of Pi 's 3D or its amazing CGI tiger, there's confusion about the movie's meaning. Readers of Yann Martel's original novel also face the challenging last-minute question presented by the story's narrator.

Viewers expecting a fanciful adventure at sea were understandably caught off-guard by the movie's finale scenes . The deliberately ambiguous Life of Pi ending explained little to viewers and left many debating what it meant in the grand theme of the story. In the end, Life of Pi's meaning might not be as cut and dry as some moviegoers seem to think. Director Ang Lee made some changes in his movie, but he kept the main themes from the book, which makes the Life of Pi ending very close to the source material.

Life of Pi is available to stream on Hulu.

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Why what happened in life of pi is ambiguous, pi explicitly let viewers decide to believe which version of the story they preferred.

Pi leaves it up to the viewer to decide which version they "prefer."

The Life of Pi ending explained that Pi's adventure concluded in a Mexican hospital bed, where he was interviewed by Japanese Ministry of Transport officials. The agents tell Pi that his story — which includes multiple animal companions and a carnivorous island — is too unbelievable for them to report. So, Pi tells them a different version of the story: one that paints a much darker and emotionally disturbing variation of events. Pi leaves it up to the viewer to decide which version they "prefer."

While this Life of Pi twist was unexpected , personal "preference" has a larger thematic meaning when viewed in the context of the overarching story. In both accounts, Life of Pi explained that Pi's father contracts a Japanese ship to transport his family, along with a number of their zoo animals, from India to Canada to escape political upheaval in their native country. The stories are identical until Pi climbs aboard the lifeboat, only re-converging when he is rescued on the Mexican shore. What actually happened during the 227 days that Pi spends lost at sea are up for debate.

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Pi's animal story explained, pi survived at sea by befriending a bengal tiger.

In the animal-centric version of Pi's tale, the Life of Pi explained that the cargo ship sinks and, during the ensuing chaos in the film set at sea, he is joined on the lifeboat by a ragtag group of zoo animals that also managed to escape: an orangutan, a spotted hyena, a zebra with a broken leg, and a Bengal Tiger (named Richard Parker). After some time, Pi watches helplessly as the hyena kills the zebra and then the orangutan before it is, subsequently, dispatched by Richard Parker.

Life of Pi explained that Pi then sets about conditioning the tiger through rewarding behavior, so that the two could co-exist in the boat. Though Pi succeeds, the pair remain on the verge of starvation. However, after several months at sea, they wash ashore on an uncharted island packed with fresh vegetation and a bountiful meerkat population. Pi and Richard Parker stuff themselves but soon discover that the island is home to a carnivorous algae that, when the tide arrives, turns the ground into an acidic trap.

When they don't believe his tale, he tells a different version of his journey.

Pi realizes the island will consume them. So, as Life of Pi explained, he stocks the lifeboat with greens and meerkats, and the pair sets sail again. When the lifeboat makes landfall along the Mexican coast, Pi and Richard Parker, t he surprisingly accurate CGI tiger , are once again malnourished. As Pi collapses on the beach, he watches the Bengal tiger disappear into the jungle. Pi is brought to a hospital, where he tells the story to the Japanese officials. However, when they don't believe his tale, he tells a different version of his journey.

Pi's Human Story Explained

Murder on the high seas defined this version of life of pi's narrative.

The Life of Pi ending explained that, in this version of Pi's tale, the cargo ship sinks, but instead of the ragtag group of animals in the lifeboat, Pi claims he was joined by his mother (Gita), the ship's despicable cook, and an injured Japanese sailor . After some time, fearing for the limited supplies in the boat, the cook kills the weakened Japanese sailor, and later, Gita. Scarred from watching his mother die in front of his eyes, Pi kills the cook in a moment of self-preservation and revenge.

Pi does not elaborate on the human story beyond the revelation that he was alone.

Pi does not mention his other adventures at sea, but it'd be easy to strip away some of the fantastical elements in favor of more grounded situations. Maybe he found an island but realized living is more than just eating and existing, deciding to take his chances at sea instead of wasting away in apathy on a beach eating meerkats. Of course, that is purely speculation — since, once again, Life of Pi explained that Pi does not elaborate on the human story beyond the revelation that he was alone on the lifeboat.

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The life of pi ending twist explained, there's no correct answer to what happened to pi.

There is no "correct" answer, and as Life of Pi explained, it intentionally leaves the question unanswered so that viewers and readers can make up their minds.

Even if the connection between the lifeboat parties was missed, The Life of Pi explained that the writer makes the connection for the audience (or readers): the hyena is the cook, the orangutan is Pi's mother, the zebra is the sailor, and Richard Parker is Pi. However, the film's juxtaposition of the animal story and the human story led many moviegoers to view the last-minute Life of Pi plot point as a finite "twist," which was not the intention of Martel with the book , or very likely Ang Lee with the film.

Viewers point to the look of anguish on Pi's face during his telling of the human story in the film as "proof" he was uncomfortable facing the horror of his experience. However, the novel takes the scene in the opposite direction, with Pi expressing annoyance at the two men, criticizing them for wanting " a story they already know. " Either way, there is no "correct" answer, and as Life of Pi explained, it intentionally leaves the question unanswered so that viewers and readers can make up their minds.

It can be easy to forget that, from the outset, The Writer promised a story that would make him believe in God . The beginning of the narrative sees Pi struggling to reconcile the differences between faith interpretations, acknowledging that each of them has value, even if they tell different stories. It helped him survive his ordeal at sea. As a result, the larger question is impossible to answer definitively, and, as mentioned, the "truth" of Pi's story is of little concern to Martel or Lee.

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What life of pi's ending really means, both the book and the movie are about inspiring belief.

Pi is faced with a heavy challenge: telling a story that will make a person believe in God . Some listeners might remain unconvinced, but in the case of The Writer in the twisty Life of Pi , who openly admits that he prefers the story with the tiger, and the Japanese officials, who in their closing report remarked on the feat of " surviving 227 days at sea ... especially with a tiger ," Pi successfully helps skeptics overcome one of the largest hurdles to faith: believing in the unbelievable.

Since Pi marries The Writer's preference for the Tiger story with the line, " and so it goes with God ," it's hard to separate the question from theology. Evidenced by his multi-religious background, Pi does not believe any of the world's religions are a one-stop shop for the truth. Instead, Life of Pi explained that his story helps viewers consider which version they prefer: the one where people make their way and suffer through the darkness or the one where people are aided by something greater than themselves.

People can always pick and choose the parts that benefit their preferred version

Aside from the theological implications, it's insular to view the Life of Pi ending as simply a dismissal of everything that Pi had previously described (and/or experienced) since, in keeping with his view that every religious story has worthwhile parts, a third interpretation of the ending of the movie could be that the " truth " is a mix of both stories. Like Pi and his three-tiered faith routine, people can always pick and choose the parts that benefit their preferred version of Life of Pi .

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How the life of pi ending differs in the book, the movie version moved many reveals to much later in the story.

Ang Lee's Life of Pie was based on the 2001 novel by Yann Martel, and there were some major differences between the two versions. The one key difference is that the book reveals Pi survived and ended up in a Mexican hospital early — which eliminates a lot of the tension compared to the movie. While most people realized Pi had to survive to tell his story to the Writer, leaving the arrival at the hospital until the end of the movie allowed viewers to follow his journey rather than just catch up with what happened to him.

In the book, it takes longer before readers realize Richard Parker is a tiger and not a human.

There was also a moment in the book where Pi learned why tigers could be dangerous. His father showed him what a starving tiger could do to another animal — or a person — and made this a life lesson. In the movie, Pi tried to feed Richard Parker by hand and his father then showed him the example. In the book at least, Pi was more careful, while in the movie he seemed careless, which went against his intelligence. In the book, it takes longer before readers realize Richard Parker is a tiger and not a human.

As for the Life of Pi ending, the book spoils the fact that Pi has a family now — a wife, kids, and pets of his own. He had a happy ending and moved on with his life. However, this is not revealed until the end of the Ang Lee movie and The Writer doesn't even know Pi has a family until he sees his wife at the end. Pi wanted to show there was a God to the Writer, and his story did that. However, his story also showed that life goes on, and in the movie, that was the bow on the Life of Pi ending.

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Based on the best-selling novel by Yann Martel, Life of Pi tells the story of Pi Patel, a young Indian boy who, after being shipwrecked, becomes stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. With no one but the tiger for company, Pi must fight to stay alive and reach safety. Suraj Sharma stars as Pi Patel, and the film is directed by Ang Lee. 

‘Life of Pi’ movie review: Ang Lee’s visually breathtaking Yann Martel adaptation

• December 19, 2012
• ★★★ , Movie Reviews

Visually majestic, beautifully composed, Ang Lee’s Life of Pi is a spellbinding journey that captures your attention and requests careful consideration as it unfolds on the screen. Based on the popular 2001 novel by Yann Martel, the film attempts to illustrate no less than the nature of man’s relationship with God, and would be a spectacular success if it realized it’s ambitions. It doesn’t (and neither did the novel), but there’s enough good here on a pure filmmaking level to make this well worth watching. 

Like the novel, Life of Pi is separated into three sections: the first details the early life of Piscine Molitor Patel, the second follows his incredible 227-day journey adrift at sea with an adult Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, and the third – new to the film – is a bookend (and intercut) sequence with an older Pi (Irrfan Khan) telling his story to an unnamed writer (Rafe Spall).

Pi’s backstory – filled with wonderful little asides like how he got his name, how he was able to change it, and how a paperwork error gave the tiger in his father’s zoo a human name – is truly charming, and easily could have encapsulated an entire film. Tabu and Adil Hussain offer solid support as Pi’s mother and father; the scene where the father demonstrates the animal nature of Richard Parker is especially memorable.

The survival at sea segment – which makes up the bulk of the film – is terrifying, magical, uplifting, and enthralling. It’s a spiritual journey, and we’re always aware of that, but the detailed breakdown of how Pi manages to stay alive ranks up there with Cast Away and other incredible tales of survival. During these scenes, the teenage Pi is played by Suraj Sharma, in his first film role; you’d never know that, given the confidence that he displays here, carrying the film by himself.

And then there’s the bookend, which, thematically, wraps everything up in a neat little unambiguous bow and just about undermines the rest of the movie. I think having read the novel prepared me for the ending here, but I still find it profoundly irritating. I can’t get into it without spoiling things, but for the sake of one good line of thought – and it is, admittedly, a good idea – the author sacrifices all the greatness that led up to it. 

Now, this is no fault of the movie – it’s inherent in the source, and no realization would have been able to alter it. As an adaptation of the novel, Lee’s film might as well be flawless. Visually, certainly, it’s unparalleled.

Life of Pi uses a great deal of CGI, but it’s used so well that we cannot tell what is real and what isn’t in regards to the central creation of Richard Parker (most of the tiger scenes, apparently, have been created using CGI effects). Other animal sequences, like the schools of flying fish, or waves of glowing jellyfish, or a giant whale that nearly capsizes the liferaft, are similarly effective. 

Gorgeous cinematography by Claudio Miranda begins with familiar pastels in the India-set scenes before moving on to some eerie, neon-lit sequences during the capsizing and survival at sea sequences; Miranda also shot TRON: Legacy , which gave off a similar vibe. 

Life of Pi uses 3D as well as just about any film that has come before it, and is one of the few high-profile films that genuinely benefits from the technology. Simple nature shots – such as those in the opening credit sequence – make inspired use of 3D, but during the survival story there’s a depth and dimension and eerie otherworldness to the ocean that makes seeing the film in 3D a unique experience; underwater scenes are especially vivid.

While Life of Pi isn’t a perfect film, it’s about as perfect an adaptation as could be reasonably expected. Many will love this movie, as many have loved the novel that has come before it; the rest of us may simply like it. 

• 2012 , Adil Hussain , Ang Lee , David Magee , Gérard Depardieu , Irrfan Khan , Life of Pi , Rafe Spall , Suraj Sharma , Tabu , Yann Martel

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Jason Pirodsky

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