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.

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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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Common Sense Says
Parents Say 42 Reviews
Kids Say 89 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Beautiful, emotional, intense story of faith and friendship.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 12+?

Several very intense sequences with lots of action, peril, and emotional impact.

A few uses of "pissing," mostly said by other boys making fun of Pi's full name,

Mild flirting between a teenage couple; women in swimwear.

Any Positive Content?

Strong themes of the power of faith, friendship, perseverance, and the ability t

Pi survives against the strongest possible odds, facing down vicious storms, hun

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.

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.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

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

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."

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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Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (42)
Kids say (89)

Based on 42 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 : Asian directors, 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 : August 12, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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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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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.”

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For Pi, A Wonderful 'Life' Finds Its Way To Film

Bob Mondello

Pi Patel (Suraj Sharma) is lost at sea with a fierce Bengal tiger, Richard Parker. Twentieth Century Fox hide caption

Director: Ang Lee
Genre: Adventure
Running time: 127 minutes

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

With: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain

Watch Clips

'It's Yours'

Credit: Fox 2000 Pictures

'Please Send Help'

When your dad owns a zoo in India, as Pi's dad does, it's perhaps natural to regard animals as your buddies. Cool if you're talking goats and turtles; less cool if the animal you decide you want to pet is a Bengal tiger.

"He's an animal, not a playmate," his terrified father shouts. "Animals have souls," the boy replies gently. "I have seen it in their eyes."

Fast forward a few years, and Pi will get a chance to test that theory when his family closes the zoo and is accompanying the animals on a sea voyage to their new home in Canada. A terrible storm swamps their freighter, and it starts to sink. Thinking of the animals, Pi races below deck to free them and sees zebras swimming past him. He barely manages to escape himself.

As the freighter goes down, he clings to debris, fashioning a sort of raft so that he can survive a truly horrifying night. Then dawn comes, and there appear to be no other survivors. Pi is relieved to spy an empty lifeboat nearby — only to discover it's not as empty as it looked .

Thus begins a tale that, on the page, was widely viewed as part religious allegory, part animal fable, part rip-roaring adventure. Although there's talk of gods in a framing device — because inquisitive Pi qualifies as a devout Hindu, Christian and Muslim — the challenge for director Ang Lee and his human star Suraj Sharma was to bring the adventure part to persuasive life.

And do they ever, finessing survival questions just as they occur to you and personalizing, in intimate ways, both boy and tiger.

"We were both raised in a zoo by the same master," Pi murmurs to his fierce companion. "Now we have been orphaned, left to face our ultimate master together."

Pi takes in the bioluminescent wonders of the sea. Twentieth Century Fox hide caption

Pi takes in the bioluminescent wonders of the sea.

Lee conjures exquisite images — an underwater shot of the freighter going down, a dense school of flying fish glinting in the sun, phosphorescent jellyfish lighting up the night as a majestic whale surfaces inches from the boat. And of course there's that magnificent orange-and-black beast at the film's center.

He's Ang Lee's crouching tiger, hidden digitizers, as it were: During filming, there was often a boy on the boat, and occasionally a tiger on the boat, just not at the same time. But there isn't a single image of them together that you're likely to question while watching the film.

The script I did question; it takes awhile to get going, and it feels strangely flat at the very end. But in between, Lee is very skillfully employing cinema's most advanced digital techniques in the service of an adventure yarn that is gloriously old-fashioned — and often just glorious.

Review: ‘Life of Pi’ is a masterpiece by Ang Lee

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Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” asks that we take a leap of faith along with a boy named Pi Patel and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker as an angry ocean and the ironies of fate set them adrift. Their struggle for survival is as elegant as it is epic with the director creating a grand adventure so cinematically bold, and a spiritual voyage so quietly profound, that if not for the risk to the castaways, you might wish their passage from India would never end. There are always moral crosscurrents in Lee’s most provocative work, but so magical and mystical is this parable, it’s as if the filmmaker has found the philosopher’s stone.

Yann Martel’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel, on which the film is based, constructed many trials for the 17-year-old Pi on his way to becoming a man. It is a richly drawn interior work, much of it spent inside Pi’s mind or awash in his memories. Lee and screenwriter David Magee have managed to stay true to the source without being constrained by it, as so often happens in adaptations. Indeed, Lee has enhanced the novel’s power, employing 3-D and CGI technology with such originality that there are moments when the ocean seems to float around you. And when a certain tiger roars, you may well jump.

As magnetic as Lee’s boundary-breaking visuals are, that wouldn’t be enough to carry the film if it were not anchored by such an electrifying tale. The core is the 227 days Pi spends in the lifeboat, where the rational and the religious vie for his soul and the tiger for his life. But the film, as the book did before it, wants you to understand the complicated and conflicted species being examined here.

GRAPHIC: Tricks to turning pages into frames

To set up the existential quandaries to come, the film uses a framing device only hinted at in the novel. A writer (Rafe Spall) has tracked down the 40ish Pi (Irrfan Khan) in Montreal because he’s heard the shipwreck story might make a book. Their conversations weave the narrative together, but the literalness of the writer’s presence in this otherwise lyrical film is its weakest link.

Pi obliges the writer, with Khan an excellent choice as narrator, unlocking first the early days in Pondicherry, India, and the family-run zoo where he grew up. As the memories flow, images of the zoo fill the screen. Giraffes tear at leaves, pink flamingos high-step across a pond, hippos play, a sloth clings to a tree. It looks like a paradise, and surely was one for the two Patel brothers, Ravi and Piscine — a name that in grade school would become a taunt until a dramatic demonstration of the irrational number pi on the chalkboard stopped it. And so Pi he became (Ayush Tandon plays the 11-year-old). He is a curious boy equally interested in unraveling the enigma of God and the tiger Richard Parker. His father teaches him the tiger’s true nature in graphic fashion; God comes from the clerics of Hinduism, Catholicism and Islam. Pi is ecumenical in his beliefs, which becomes a thematic undercurrent in the film.

Political shifts blow through Pondicherry like a bad wind and after a bit more back story — including Pi’s first love — the Patels and many of the animals are aboard a Japanese freighter headed for Canada with hopes of a better life. There are boys of varying ages cast in the title role, but the Pi that matters most is 18-year-old newcomer Suraj Sharma, who gives the character an emotional depth that matches the Mariana Trench where Pi’s world is torn asunder.

VIDEO: ‘Life of Pi’ trailer

Fear becomes Pi’s first ally when a storm rips at the ship. The will to survive will kick in later. He’s thrown into one of the lifeboats and in the chaos that follows, some of the zoo’s menagerie join him — a frantic zebra, a fussy orangutan, a frenzied hyena and Richard Parker, who boards despite Pi’s best efforts to keep him at bay. Their face-off, and the ambivalence Pi feels toward the beast — both drawn to him and fearing him — will be another recurring theme.

You might think spending the bulk of a film in a lifeboat would soon lose its intrigue. But when there are wild animals, unpredictable seas and diminishing rations there is no time for things to get boring. The strongest survive — nothing new there — but how it comes down to the final two, and whether they will find a way through their considerable differences, is where the film works its magic. At some point the situation demands that Pi come to terms with Richard Parker and God, and this is where the film is at its lightest and darkest, managing to keep the entertainment quotient on par with the esoteric. A floating island filled with meerkats accomplishes this in particularly fine fashion.

There is always a poetic aesthetic that Lee brings to his best work — the brutal martial arts ballet of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” or the homophobic hatred against the backcountry grandeur of “Brokeback Mountain,” which would win him an Oscar for directing in 2006. In “Life of Pi,” certainly given its technological achievements, the filmmaker has raised the bar. Not since James Cameron’s breathtaking blue “Avatar” in 2009 has 3-D had such impact.

MORE: Ang Lee’s ‘Pi’ film technology

The film is consistently beautiful, but it is during Pi’s months at sea that it turns stunning. Sometimes it is in the simple wonder of a school of flying fish or a breaching whale. At others, it is the sense of an infinite presence in a star-drenched midnight sky or an ethereal underwater world illuminated by phosphorescence. The vision is Lee’s, but credit must go to the battalions required to pull off this remarkable feat, including director of photography Claudio Miranda and production designer David Gropman.

While we witness much on screen, the film rests on what Pi is feeling — his doubts, his fears, his faith. That we feel so keenly what Pi feels is a credit to Sharma in his first, and hopefully not his last time on screen, his eyes as endless as that night sky. The emotional pitch of this journey comes in the stream-of-consciousness conversations he conducts with Richard Parker and with God. For as much as Pi is searching for land, he is searching for something to believe in. In that shipwrecked boy’s struggle for answers, Lee has given us a masterpiece.

MPAA rating: PG for some scary action, emotional thematic content and peril

Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes

Playing: In general release

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‘life of pi’: new york film festival review.

Ang Lee achieves an admirable sense of wonder in this tall tale about a shipwrecked teenager stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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Review: Stunning Visuals Make Up for Life of Pi's Preachiness

Image may contain Human Person and Lighting

The first eye-roll comes pretty early into Life of Pi .

It’s not that anything particularly poorly scripted or bone-headedly acted has happened — far from it — it’s just that when anyone on a movie screen says they’re about to tell a story that will make you “believe in God,” it’s almost a little too sincere to take. (And for atheists, it’s probably an affront to their ethos.) Luckily, Life of Pi doesn’t continue like that for the entire film.

Based on Yann Martel’s book of the same name, the new film by Ang Lee is one of 2012’s most visually compelling releases: It does with humans and CGI what previously only seemed possible in a Disney animated film. And while there’s a good chance it’ll jerk tears out of even the biggest cynics, its heavy-handed message is a hump that might be hard for some to get over.

That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try, because, much like The Chronicles of Narnia before it, buried in all the religious allegory stuff is an actual story of a young man’s quest to stay alive. With a Bengal tiger. On a lifeboat.

( Spoiler alert: Minor plot points follow.)

The PG-rated movie, which opens Wednesday, tells the story of an Indian boy surviving a boat crash in the Pacific Ocean, but it actually begins in Montreal. A young writer (played by Rafe Spall ) in search of a good tale to tell has been directed to the home of Piscine “Pi” Patel (Irrfan Khan), who apparently has a divine one. Soon Patel begins telling the writer of growing up in Pondicherry, India, in the 1970s with a father who was a zookeeper. The young Pi was raised Hindu, but eventually discovers Christianity (and later Islam and a little Kabbalah) and becomes one of those kids who asks a million questions.

Everything changes, however, when the family chooses to emigrate to Canada. Pi’s life is packed up — along with his family’s zoo animals — on a cargo ship and put out to sea, where a terrible storm leaves Pi adrift on a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. “Pi’s Ark” (his words) eventually succumbs to the inevitable survival-of-the-fittest shakedown and the 17-year-old (at this point played by newcomer Suraj Sharma , who gives a solid performance) is left on the boat alone with the giant feline. And that’s where the movie really begins.

Photos courtesy 20th Century Fox As Pi and his tiger companion learn to survive together — building floating devices, catching food, collecting rain water — the true beauty Lee’s artful eye is on display. The director previously made Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , but Life of Pi is his first foray into 3-D.

You’d never know it. Each lushly created scene seems crafted by a master who knows exactly when it needs to jump off-screen and when it can simply stay put. The computer-generated Richard Parker looks so authentic it almost puts Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes to shame. The colors and composition put on display by Lee and director of photography Claudio Miranda are nothing short of fantastic. The ocean seems to envelop the whole of the audience’s vision, and whether it’s dusk (when the sunset looks more radiant than the sun itself) or the middle of the night (when bioluminescent fish create a cosmos underwater), everything looks gorgeous to the point of unbelievable.

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And it is. Or maybe not. As Pi recounts his months at sea, the tales of his increasingly affectionate relationship with the tiger — and of a carnivorous island populated with meerkats — it seems more likely that his tales are those of a starving boy living on the delusional edge of death than of a young man who survived a great adventure.

He speaks of offering himself up to death — and ultimately God — only to awaken alive. Even when he’s finally rescued and insurance adjusters come to get his story about the crash, they don’t believe it. He eventually tells them another one that’s more believable but far more dark and gruesome. They leave, believing what they want to hear. (The movie’s tagline is “believe the unbelievable,” for what it’s worth.)

When Pi finishes telling his story to the young writer, even he struggles to believe it. Was Pi’s journey after the shipwreck a magical adventure that brought him to safety in almost miraculous circumstances? Or was it much more dark and brutal but clouded in memory by a young man who was trying to get out of his ordeal in any way he could?

There are no answers, but one story is more powerful to believe and, as Pi says, “and so it is with God.” What we do know is that a young man went on a hero’s journey , resolved either by pure human perseverance and a Darwinian instinct for survival or by divine intervention.

Ultimately, that’s Life of Pi ’s point: It may not make you believe in God, but it puts up a mirror to let you see where you stand on the matter. And the reflection is gorgeous.

WIRED Second-to-none 3-D visuals; great computer-generated Bengal tiger performance; epic story.

TIRED Hits the God drum just a little too hard.

Read Underwire’s movie ratings guide .

'Life of Pi' is a visual and emotional tiger

USA TODAY Review: ***1/2 out of four
Stars: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain, Gérard Depardieu; Director: Ang Lee
Rated PG; Runtime: 2 hours, 7 minutes; Opens Wednesday nationwide

If ever there was a fearless filmmaker, it's Ang Lee.

With Life of Pi , Lee takes on a not-so-crouching tiger to bring audiences a wondrously enthralling adventure fable.

Shooting a film on water is notoriously risky, and most of Life of Pi (* * * ½ out of four; rated PG; opening Wednesday nationwide) takes on that hazard. Working with animals (even the CG variety) and children can also be rough going. Lee blithely faces these hurdles and still another: shooting the movie in three dimensions.

All these gambles pay off handsomely. Lee's exquisite adaptation of Yann Martel's 2001 best seller is a visual feast that leaves an indelible impression. Vibrantly rendered 3-D adds to the film's otherworldly quality.

A teenage boy is stranded somewhere on the Pacific Ocean in a small lifeboat with a menacing tiger aboard. What could be more challenging — for director and innocent main character?

Lee is a master at epic filmmaking, as beautifully illustrated in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon . He is also brilliant at evoking emotional resonance, as he demonstrated in Brokeback Mountain .

Lee cast Suraj Sharma — who is making his film debut — in the lead role of teenage Pi Patel. Alone on the open sea for a good portion of the film, Sharma proves to be a natural talent.

Pi, short for Piscine, the French word for swimming pool, was named by a father who loved all things aquatic, though he never swam.

Pi is fascinated by world religions, and also the dangerous beauty of one of the animals in his family's Pondicherry zoo: a tiger oddly named Richard Parker.

When Pi's parents decide to move — along with their menagerie — from India to Canada, tragedy ensues. Their ship is caught in a powerful tempest featuring the most harrowing water-logged disaster scenes since Titanic .

Scenes in which Pi struggles to survive on a storm-tossed sea are thoroughly riveting, as are amazing underwater sequences in which the zoo animals struggle mightily. Pi somehow survives, along with Richard Parker.

During Pi's long oceanic voyage, the film is buoyantly riveting. It's a compelling personal odyssey of survival amid grandly spectacular vistas. A tentative bond between boy and hungry tiger seems oddly natural in this extreme, storm-lashed setting.

It is only in the story's expository framing device that the overall flow is marred. Interviews between an adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) and a struggling writer (Rafe Spall) come off plodding in comparison to the sumptuous adventure on the high seas. These passages work better as a literary device than a cinematic one.

Otherwise, Lee takes the best from Martell's novel and blends religion and zoology (the adult Pi's dual college majors) in artful ways. Pi encounters a captivating array of sea creatures while shipwrecked: magnificent whales, glorious flying fish and iridescent underwater life. He also cries out to God for deliverance.

As mighty waves crash, and even when the sea is nearly becalmed, Life of Pi is a spectacular high-seas epic that employs technology brilliantly and underscores the power of a vividly told story.

'Life of Pi' Clip: Flying Fish

A critical review of ‘Life of Pi’

Eye on the Oscars 2013: Best Picture

By Todd Kushigemachi

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The tale of a young man, a tiger and God, Yann Martel ‘s bestselling novel “ Life of Pi ” had been dubbed “unfilmable” countless times before Ang Lee’s adaptation screened. The Oscar-winning helmer handily silenced skeptics, delivering a pic praised by critics as a remarkable visual achievement.

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Several reviewers felt compelled to catalog the stunning images of the survival parable, acknowledging the stellar work by the visual effects team and cinematographer Claudio Miranda. Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal fondly recalled, among other memorable sights, “a whale breaching in the night, immensely phosphorescent.”

But perhaps the most reverential praise was reserved for the lifelike computer-generated imagery of Richard Parker, Pi’s Bengal tiger companion. Not particularly enthusiastic about the film, A.O. Scott of the New York Times still described the physical details of the beast as “so perfectly rendered that you will swear that Richard Parker is real.”

The 3D also drew special attention, including favorable comparisons to James Cameron’s stereoscopic milestone “Avatar.” Even the Chicago Sun-Times’ Roger Ebert, a vocal skeptic of the technology, praised Lee’s use of the cinematic tool.

“What astonishes me is how much I love the use of 3D in ‘Life of Pi,’ ” Ebert wrote. “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.”

The visual pleasures of the film might have been universally praised, but critics were less in sync about the film’s framing device, featuring adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) telling his story to a writer (Rafe Spall) decades later. Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times referred to their conversations as the “weakest link” in an “otherwise lyrical film.”

However, other writers were more focused on how these scenes establish a deeper, existential twist for the visual feast. While David Edelstein of New York Magazine described the scenes as “clunky,” he suggested that they pay off.

“The movie has a sting in its tail that puts what you’ve seen in a startlingly harsh context,” Edelstein wrote.

Variety said: “Summoning the most advanced digital-filmmaking technology to deliver the most old-fashioned kind of audience satisfaction, this exquisitely beautiful adaptation of Yann Martel’s castaway saga has a sui generis quality that’s never less than beguiling, even if its fable-like construction and impeccable artistry come up a bit short in terms of truly gripping, elemental drama.” — Justin Chang

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Ang Lee’s Life of Pi : Storm and Fang, Water and Wonder

This adaptation of the award-winning novel about a boy and a tiger marks the greatest advance in 3-D technology since 'Avatar'

An Indian boy and a Bengal tiger: a tale familiar to children a century ago from Rudyard Kipling’s story of Mowgli and Shere Khan in Jungle Book and, with more unfortunate racial stereotyping, in Helen Bannerman’s The Story of Little Black Sambo . Call the boy Pi and the Bengal tiger Richard Parker, trap them on a small lifeboat in unchartered Pacific waters, set up a boy-vs.-beast battle for territory and survival, and you have the essence of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi , winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2002. No question, it’s a (literally) ripping yarn, full of desperation, heroism and a certain spectral awe. But the story poses unusual challenges to the director of a live-action movie.

Ang Lee has often bucked long odds in his films. The Taiwan-born American director mastered the nuances of 19th-century English manners in Sense and Sensibility , set martial-artist adversaries to dancing on tree tops in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and sold the mainstream audience on the love story of two cowboys in Brokeback Mountain . This time, Lee sets out to astound the viewer with the hitherto untapped properties of 3-D. Pi builds on the triumphant innovations in James Cameron’s Avatar , and the advances in motion-capture technology evident in Rise of the Planet of the Apes , to create a tactile, spectacular world of wonder.

(READ: Corliss’s review of Avatar )

A techno-brat like Robert Zemeckis might have been attracted to this tale of the teenage Pi (Suraj Sharma), the only human survivor of a shipwreck that took the lives of his family, stranded on an immense ocean in a confined space with a wild creature who could kill him with one swipe of a paw. Zemeckis has used motion-capture for children’s fables ( The Polar Express ) and Dark Age dramas ( Beowulf ), and in his last live-action film, Cast Away , put Tom Hanks through an ordeal of desert-island isolation.

But Lee, in a quieter way, is just as headstrong a pioneer. To tell him that a film project is impossible is just a way of getting him interested in it. Having come to the University of Illinois for college, and settling in New York City , Lee plunged himself into an alien culture for a series of social comedies about good manners ( Sense and Sensibility ), gay manners ( The Wedding Banquet ), awkward manners ( The Ice Storm ) and no manners at all ( Taking Woodstock ). Plus two Westerns ( Ride with the Devil , Brokeback Mountain ), a Chinese-language exercise in erotics ( Lust, Caution ) and a Marvel comics movie (the lumbering Hulk ).

(READ: Richard Schickel’s review of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain )

Making a film about a teenager who is Noah, Robinson Crusoe and Siegfried (without Roy), and who encounters all manner of sea life, plus an orangutan, a hyena and about a million meerkats, and whose mortal enemy and sole companion is an adult tiger, had a uniquely high degree of difficulty. A decade ago, a Life of Pi movie could not have been imagined, let alone realized — unless Lee had employed a severely sedated tiger, or summoned an endless supply of lookalike actors to play Pi and replace the ones whom a more energetic beast would have clawed or devoured. Now, thanks to advances in technique and a new generation of artist-tinkerers, it can be done.

Life of Pi , from a script by David Magee, isn’t all storm-and-fang; it has recognizable Ang Lee elements. The tensions in a loving family, familiar from Sense and Sensibility , are reprised here in the relationship of young Pi (played at age 12 by Ayush Tandon) to his father (Adil Hussain), who owns a zoo in the Indian city of Pondicherry, and mother (Indian indie icon Tabu). The prickly love stories at the heart of The Ice Storm , Brokeback Mountain and Lust, Caution get a more tender, tentative play in the friendship of young Pi and a girl (Shravanthi Sainath) he meets at a dance class.

(READ: Corliss’s review of Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon )

When Pi’s father is obliged to sell the Pondicherry zoo, he books his family and the animals on a Japanese cargo ship headed for Canada ; the storm that sinks the ship, kills his parents and disperses the creatures — another amazing sequence — launches Pi on cross-Pacific journey that lasts seven months. That trek has its analog in Lee’s own itinerary, which has taken him from Taiwan to the U.S. to Britain and finally back to his homeland, where he built a huge tank for the sea scenes. Pi’s quest, which tests his spirit no less than his resolve, will lead him through three religions and a climactic enlightenment — all of which the adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) describes to a skeptical Canadian writer (Rafe Spall). Those present-day scenes are the movie’s only sign of clumsiness, though Khan, so impressive as the displaced widower Sunil in season three of In Treatment , tells the tale with a poised poignance. (Spall replaced Tobey Maguire, who had starred in The Ice Storm and Ride With the Devil , when the director decided that rapport was lacking.)

To prepare for this daunting endeavor — a no-star production whose budget crept toward $100 million — Lee created a 70-minute “pre-viz” of the movie’s central section on the life raft (we can’t wait to see it as an extra on the Life of Pi DVD), then led a team of visual-effects artists to bring the tiger to vivid life on the boat. On the set, of course, there was no tiger, just as, in Rise of the Planet of the Apes , there were no apes, just digital sorcery. Yet the creature is as mean, majestic and as palpable as the one painted by Henri Rousseau in Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!) — a title that applies equally here.

(READ: Corliss’s review of Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution )

The difference is that, in Life of Pi , it’s the audience that’s likely to be slack-jawed. On Lee’s Pacific, the surface is a shimmering mirror; it reflects the sky so clearly that Pi seems to be both underwater and above the clouds. At times Lee follows the hallucinations of the malnourished boy — as in an underwater montage, where fish form a mosaic of his faraway girlfriend’s face. The cinematography of Claudio Miranda ( The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ) has the pellucid immediacy of a fever dream. Instead of the ecstatic soaring of the cross-species lovers in Avatar , this dream or nightmare is taking place in the remotest part of what we call Earth. We see dire and divine events unfold through Pi’s troubled spirit and, at times, through the eye of the tiger.

(READ: How Rise of the Planet of the Apes revolutionized the action movie )

To compare Life of Pi with Avatar is not to suggest that the Lee movie will challenge the Cameron for all-time box office supremacy. But Pi is a poem of emotional immediacy — and a giant leap forward, outward and upward in expanding the resources of the evolving medium of movies. Magical realism was rarely so magical and never before so real.

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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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Action/Adventure , Drama , Mystery/Suspense , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

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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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‘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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12 Great Movies With Only One Major Character

10 best films set at sea, ranked according to imdb, the 10 best films shot entirely on green screen, ranked (according to imdb).

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.

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10 Fantasy-Adventure Movies To Watch If You Love Life Of Pi

Life of Pi is a touching fantasy-adventure and these similar movies evoke some of the same mysterious and magical qualities.

Why What Happened In Life Of Pi Is Ambiguous

Pi explicitly let viewers decide to believe which version of the story they preferred.

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."

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.

Ang Lee: 5 Ways Brokeback Mountain Is Better Than Life Of Pi (& 5 Ways Life Of Pi Is Better)

Life of Pi and Brokeback Mountain are two of Ang Lee's best movies. And while they are completely different, they are often compared. Which is better?

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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Some stories don't rely on a long list of A-list actors to deliver an incredible movie, these are some of the best movies with one leading character.

The Life Of Pi Ending Twist Explained

There's no correct answer to what happened to pi.

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.

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.

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.

The sea has always been a mysterious setting and is in some of the greatest films ever made. Here are the best films set at sea, according to IMDb.

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 .

Green screen has become one of the most essential tools of filmmaking, and here are the 10 best movies shot entirely on green screen, ranked.

How The Life Of Pi Ending Differs In The Book

The movie version moved many reveals to much later in the story.

Richard Parker lying on the bow of a boat in Life of Pi.

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.

How The Life Of Pi Ending Was Received

Ang lee was praised for how he handled the book's final chapters.

The Life Of Pi was a hit for director Ang Lee, with it arguably being his most successful release since 2005's Brokeback Mountain, and is perhaps rivaled only by the likes of 2000's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in terms of how highly it's regarded. Unsurprisingly, the ending is one of the many reasons The Life Of Pi was so praised . In particular, it was regularly noted often how the final moments of The Life Of Pi manage to recontextualize everything else that happens in the movie without undermining it.

While the lion's share of the positive responses to The Life Of Pi seemed to focus on its amazing asthetic elements, Ang Lee's abilities as a storyteller also frequently came up as a highlight. Prior to the release of the movie in 2012, many had thought that Yann Martel's 2001 novel was borderline-unfilmable, with its many deep philosophical ideas and ambiguous ending being incredibly difficult to bring to the big screen.

Ang Lee, along with Life Of Pi movie screenwriter David Magee, managed to prove this wasn't the case. There may have been a few changes made to the ending of the Life Of Pi movie that didn't exactly follow the plot of the book, but given how well the film version was received, the alterations worked. David Magee was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay alongside The Life Of Pi 's other accolades (including an Academy Award win for Best Director for Ang Lee). This, if nothing else, shows that the crucial final moments of The Life Of Pi were adapted to the screen incredibly well.

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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.

COMMENTS

Life of Pi movie review & film summary (2012)
Ebert praises Ang Lee's adaptation of Yann Martel's novel as a triumph of storytelling and visual mastery. He describes the film as a spiritual achievement that explores the wonder of life and the relationship between a boy and a tiger in a lifeboat.
Life of Pi
Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 08/09/24 Full Review Dylan S "Life of Pi" is one of those films that leaves you with a new message after each watch. A journey of religion, individuality ...
Life of Pi Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 42 ): Kids say ( 89 ): 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 ...
Life of Pi
Read critics' and audience's opinions on Ang Lee's adaptation of Yann Martel's novel. See how the film blends visual effects, drama, and spirituality in a story of a boy and a tiger at sea.
Life of Pi (2012)
Read what IMDb users thought of the 2012 film adaptation of Yann Martel's novel, directed by Ang Lee. Some praised the visuals, performances and story, while others criticized the length, tone and ending.
'Life of Pi,' Directed by Ang Lee
Directed by Ang Lee. Adventure, Drama, Fantasy. PG. 2h 7m. 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 ...
Life of Pi Review
IGN praises Ang Lee's adaptation of the bestseller as a lyrical, moving, and visually gorgeous film. The review highlights the amazing CGI, the young star Suraj Sharma, and the themes of survival, religion, and storytelling.
Movie Review
Pi Patel (Suraj Sharma) is lost at sea with a fierce Bengal tiger, Richard Parker. Twentieth Century Fox. Life of Pi. Director: Ang Lee. Genre: Adventure. Running time: 127 minutes. Rated PG for ...
Life of Pi
With: Pi Patel - Suraj Sharma Adult Pi Patel - Irrfan Khan Gita Patel - Tabu Writer - Rafe Spall Cook - Gerard Depardieu With: Adil Hussain, Ayush Tandon, Gautam Belur. (English, Tamil, French ...
Review: 'Life of Pi' is a masterpiece by Ang Lee
By Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times Film Critic. Nov. 20, 2012 12 AM PT. Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" asks that we take a leap of faith along with a boy named Pi Patel and a Bengal tiger named ...
'Life of Pi' Review: 2012 Movie
'Life of Pi': New York Film Festival Review. Ang Lee achieves an admirable sense of wonder in this tall tale about a shipwrecked teenager stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger.
Review: Stunning Visuals Make Up for Life of Pi's Preachiness
The PG-rated movie, which opens Wednesday, tells the story of an Indian boy surviving a boat crash in the Pacific Ocean, but it actually begins in Montreal. A young writer (played by Rafe Spall ...
'Life of Pi' is a visual and emotional tiger
Stars: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain, Gérard Depardieu; Director: Ang Lee. Rated PG; Runtime: 2 hours, 7 minutes; Opens Wednesday nationwide. If ever there was a fearless filmmaker, it ...
A critical review of 'Life of Pi'
The tale of a young man, a tiger and God, Yann Martel's bestselling novel "Life of Pi" had been dubbed "unfilmable" countless times before Ang Lee's adaptation screened. The Oscar-winning helmer ...
'Life of Pi' Review
Yann Martel's Life of Pi was long considered an unfilmable novel - and not without good reason. In the film version, the story revolves around a burned-out writer (Rafe Spall) who, in his travels, gets wind of a remarkable story about a man once shipwrecked at sea. The writer approaches the man, Pi Patel (Irrfan Khan), who promises to tell him ...
Life of Pi
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 hyena, an orangutan and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named ...
'Life of Pi' Movie Review
Life of Pi, from a script by David Magee, isn't all storm-and-fang; it has recognizable Ang Lee elements. The tensions in a loving family, familiar from Sense and Sensibility, are reprised here in the relationship of young Pi (played at age 12 by Ayush Tandon) to his father (Adil Hussain), who owns a zoo in the Indian city of Pondicherry, and ...
Life of Pi Movie Review
Life of Pi Movie Review: Critics Rating: 4 stars, click to give your rating/review,Ang Lee interweaves adventure and spirituality brilliantly. And if you still don't know what meditat
Life of Pi
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 ...
Life of Pi (film)
Life of Pi is a 2012 adventure-drama film directed and produced by Ang Lee and written by David Magee.Based on Yann Martel's 2001 novel of the same name, it stars Suraj Sharma in his film debut, Irrfan Khan, Tabu, Rafe Spall, Gérard Depardieu and Adil Hussain in lead roles. The storyline revolves around two survivors of a shipwreck who are on a lifeboat stranded in the Pacific Ocean for 227 days.
Life of Pi
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.
'Life of Pi' movie review: Ang Lee's visually breathtaking Yann Martel
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.
Life Of Pi Ending Explained
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.

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Review: Stunning Visuals Make Up for Life of Pi's Preachiness