Fresh-off it’s 4 wins at this year’s Oscars – including a 2nd Best Director statue for Ang Lee – “Life of Pi” hits store shelves/PPV. In a year of great films, including “Argo”, “Lincoln”, “Silver Linings Playbook” and “Les Miserables”, I’m still stunned that this took home more Oscars than any 2012 release.
Based on the international best-selling novel by Yann Martel, “Life of Pi” begins with an overly-long opening credits sequence featuring peaceful zoo animals. Then we meet a man named Pi (played by Irrfan Khan), who’s about to tell his incredible life story to a writer looking for his next book.
As a boy, Pi lived in India with his family, who owned a zoo. He was taught by his father not to interact with the animals, especially the ferocious ones. Pi is a thoughtful boy, spending much of his time trying to find a meaning to his life. He explores different religions, belonging to several at the same time.
Pi’s father decides to move the family to Canada, where he’ll sell the zoo animals and everyone will start a new life. But during their journey across the Pacific Ocean aboard a cargo ship, a huge storm pounds and sinks the ship and Pi is the only survivor. Well, except for a few of the animals, including a magnificent Bengal tiger named Richard Parker (he got the name because of a paperwork mistake). Pretty soon only Pi and the tiger are left on their lifeboat and Pi has to try to stay alive using the few provisions on the boat while also staying away from the hungry tiger. And the relationship between the two castaways changes throughout the film.
I’m not a big fan of movies that begin with a key character telling someone else the story in flashback. Usually this devise fails to build interest and simply gives too much away. It worked in “Titanic” (ironically another film about a sinking ship. Maybe Lee was inspired by the James Cameron classic (since he used Cameron’s 3D technology made famous with “Avatar” in making “Pi”), but it doesn’t work here. Lee was obviously more concerned with Pi’s journey and not the result, but the cutting back-and forth is distracting.
“Life of Pi” centers on two characters, so they and their situation have to be totally captivating. This film’s advantage: one of those characters is a tiger. But it was difficult not to wander away from Lee’s tale, now and again, especially during the over hour-long middle of the film in which, day after day, Pi is trying every way he can to stay alive. While he’s searching for God to save him, I was praying “Give Me More!” The trailers for “Life of Pi” were unusually vague about the plot, and now we know why: because there isn’t much of a plot. There is an obvious parallel between Pi’s journey to find God prior to the ship disaster and the search that he takes during his epic journey at sea. This may have great meaning on some, I’m just not one of them.
One of the film’s strong points is it’s look. It’s visually stunning, the storm sequences are very realistic, the underwater footage is impressive. And, the tiger is actually not a real tiger – it’s all Hollywood magic, and done extremely well. And Lee gives the film a nice, crisp, clean look.
“Life of Pi” is rated PG for some emotional content, action and peril. It’s appropriate for kids 11 and up. There are some effective scenes, but also many forced moments, both comedic and dramatic. And the ending is very awkward. Maybe because all the scenes involving the writer, including the final scenes of the film, had to be re-shot at the last minute because Tobey Maguire originally played the role but Lee decided to cut him out completely after testings because Maguire was
“too famous”. I think he feared people in the audience yelling out “Hey, there’s Spider-Man”.
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “Life of Pi” gets a C.