There have been so many adaptations lately that I felt like this one just fell short. It wasn't by any means a bad film, it just didn't live up to my expectations. Having heard amazing things about the book and learning that Academy Award winning director Ang Lee was behind this project, I was hoping for more.
I've never read the book, so basically all I knew was that there was a kid and a tiger. And that's essentially the gist of the entire movie. Pi Patel and his family were on a ship travelling to Canada, but by some mysterious force, the ship sank. Miraculously, he was able to get aboard a life boat with a zebra with a broken leg, an orangutan, a hyena, and the infamous tiger, Richard Parker. As it is with the circle of life, it is survival of the fittest leaving only Pi and Richard Parker on the boat to fend for themselves.
Richard Parker the Tiger and Pi Patel, played by Suraj Sharma. Source: Guardian UK
Fast forward 200 and some odd days and Pi lands on the shores of Mexico and is rescued. To his disbelief, Richard Parker, a tiger that he formed a bond with, ran off into the jungle without saying "goodbye". When investigators questioned him about how he survived the shipwreck, he told his story, but to a hostile audience. The investigators asked him again for a more believable story. Pi essentially told the same story about how he was stuck with these animals on a boat, but instead replaced the animals with humans.
Throughout the movie, an older version of Pi is telling his tale to a writer who wants to immortalize his story on paper. When Pi asked the writer which story he would write about, the one with the animals or the one with the humans, the unnamed writer said the one with the tiger made the better story. Pi responds saying "And so it is with God."
That one line essentially sums up the meaning of the movie. The search for spirituality and understanding religion and God. The film and book are not so much as trying to tell a tale of survival, which it does, but it tries to explain a journey with a higher power. And since Pi practices three different religions, it is about how he comes to worship each God in each of those religions.
I wanted to watch a really deep and philosophical film, but at the surface it was just a story about a kid at sea with a tiger and an overkill of CGI effects. In fact, the film was so saturated with CGI that by the end of the film I was glad to take off my 3D glasses. Usually I'm amazed by these computer generated effects, and I was, but there was just too much that it lost meaning. I guess it was cool that you never really knew which were the real animals and which were computer generated and it could have stopped there, but it didn't. You know what they say: too much of a good thing.
So what does this film have going for it besides some cool effects? Overall, the acting was pretty on point. I felt for teenage Pi when he was stuck at sea. Young, teen, and old Pi were basically the only characters in the film. Besides them, there really wasn't anyone else in the film. Pi's family had minimal amounts of screen time. So at the very least, I did feel a connection and a bond with Pi when he was stuck at sea.
Ang Lee did do an amazing job of putting this film together. You can't blame him for the lack of plot because there's only so much variation on the book that is acceptable. He's been getting heat from the Indian government because they felt that animals were being abused. But of course, he had to explain that a lot of it was just computer effects and that the animals were actually healthy. So is it his fault for being ambitious and picking this film to direct? Maybe. At the end of the day, he's worked on so many movies each one different than the next. But I still don't know who he is as a director and what his true vision is.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that as much as I would like to love this movie, it just fell short. Nothing was horrible, but nothing was fantastic. So is it because of the book that I wasn't wowed, or is it because the movie doesn't accurately portray the true message of the book? I'll never know, since this movie didn't make me want to pick up a copy of the book (whereas Silver Linings Playbook has). The movie had everything it needed to be successful. A good cast, a brilliant director, amazing effects. But all the special effects in the world can't make up for the fact that the story was, well, lacking a story. Ang Lee is a great story teller, but this time there just wasn't a story for him to tell. Don't get me wrong, I have a feeling this movie will probably get nominated for an Oscar.
Rating: 7/10
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