For those of you who might not have seen the trailer, or any of the promotional material, or read the book, the plot of Life of Pi can me summarised thusly: a teenage boy gets stranded at sea in a life raft with a tiger.
It is promised very early on that this fantastical tale “will make you believe in God.” That’s a pretty bold claim. In order to develop this idea, a significant chunk of the of the first act is dedicated to the protagonist as explains his unorthodox religious beliefs and how they came to be. This is where the problems begin. These beliefs come across as very superficial and are explained in such a way as to make a child exasperated in their simplicity. This is a issue for it is one of the main themes throughout the film, as it is for pretty much every film ever set on a boat in a storm. For all its highfaluting talk of knowing God, it’s basically a story of man against the elements. And a tiger. At sea.
It is a character study and character studies are director Ang Lee’s bread and butter. He won an Oscar for such work with Brokeback Mountain, whilst the excellent World War Two thriller, Lust, Caution was nominated for a Best Picture Golden Globe. However, he seems to struggle whenever copious amounts of CGI are involved. His attempt to perform the same trick with 2003s Hulk ended with some pretty dire results. This is far superior to that mess, but it is deeply unfulfilling on pretty much every level.
Visually, it is very impressive and some of the grander shots were clearly designed with 3D in mind, but this takes nothing away from those who see it in 2D, as I did. There are some really interesting, visually creative moments, though most of them you’ve probably seen in the trailer. The CGI is some of the best I have ever seen. The detail on the tiger, for example, is fantastic. However, it is still clearly not real and somewhat detracts from the movie, removing any sense of peril.
Aside from a few jumpy moments there was no real sense of tension and despite seeing it in a cinema full of children, there were no laughs at the moments which were clearly intended to lighten the mood, with one exception, which I’m not going to spoil for you. Essentially, It goes for the life-affirming triumph over adversity heart strings, but somehow manages to leave ever single one of them unplucked.
Not all of the blame can be placed on Lee, though he must certainly take his fair share. The script is not strong enough. It’s not bad, but it lacks any kind of flair or sparkle. Whether that is his failure to accurately transpose to the big screen or whether the flaws are inherent are in the source material, I cannot say having not read the book. However, the book did win a number of prizes upon release, including the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, which suggests the source material is pretty solid.
On a positive note, the acting was good. Suraj Sharma as Pi put in a great performance for what was essentially him standing in front of a green screen on his own for the majority of the film. Everyone else did the best they could with the source material, but it lacked the appropriate amount of flair for them to be able to anything special with. It was also quite amusing to see Gérard Depardieu pop up randomly at one point in the film.
Now, I feel the need to stress that I did not go into this film looking to hate it. In fact, I was looking to love it and held high hopes, none of which were met. In the end, this is a beautiful looking film, filled with good intentions, but unfortunately, it doesn’t bring anything of substance to the table.
Was the story fantastical enough to make me believe in God? Not even close. It wasn’t even enough to make my eyes fill up. If you want a truly heart-warming story of young man’s fantastical trip, get the far superior Big Fish on Blu-ray or DVD.