“what hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye”

The joke starts; a man walks into a life boat to find a Bengal tiger called Richard Parker… I don’t know how to really pay off that incredibly horrendous setup but let’s go past that right now. Life of Pi is a monumental film that does everything it set out to accomplish and more, but somehow still didn’t manage to completely win me over.

Pi (Suraj Sharma) while in transit, via boat, to Canada with his family from India finds himself at sea in a life boat with only an adult Bengal tiger to keep him company, and that might not be a good thing at that point in time. He comes to be in this predicament after storm manages to sink the freighter boat he and his family are traveling on.

Where this movie manages to succeed is in being upfront with how unbelievable it is and dare the viewer to come at it from a completely skeptical point of view. When we’re first introduced to the tale it’s through a journalist, played by Rafe Spall, who approaches an older Pi, played by Irrfan Khan, asking about this incredulous story that he’s been told, “will make him believe in God,” and all Pi has to respond to him is that, “all he has is a story, whether he believes it or not is entirely up to him.” With that given to us from the get go we’re basically given the out. We’re being told that it’s not so much about believing the intricate details but rather getting the overall idea entangled in our minds to possibly bring out other things as it relates to belief.

The film plays out like any mythical parable. From the first half hour of the film where Pi is telling us about his childhood in India and how he was so interested in religion that he managed to attempt to follow three at the same time it’s hard not to see the myth in the story.

Life of Pi is part Cast Away, part 127 Hours and part The Fall. It’s a survival story, it’s introspective and it’s gorgeous all at the same time. Whether all of these things are meant to be so closely intermingling is yet to be confirmed.

While I accept that the film isn’t about contesting one’s belief I do fault it for allowing non believers to have an out with its final act. Where we deal with Pi’s end of journey and he’s telling the tale again he’s confronted with the fact that while his tale is inspiring and filled with awe it’s not very believable in the world in which we reside. So he’s forced to tell a different story which involves a lot more believable elements but follows the same narrative as the unbelievable one and asks us to choose which one we prefer. Obviously I, and I hope the general audience, prefers the story of him with the tiger, but more than the actual option it proves what we know to be true of all parables; which is that while they contain elements which are unworldly they exist so that we can apply them to relevant scenarios in the real world.

8.0/10