The Life of Pi (film)

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

The film is simply fantastic. I know, I have not read the novel, but I enjoyed the movie so much. It is amazing. Gorgeous and thought-provoking. Probably one of the best movies I have seen in a long time.

Though I have to say that a 16 year old read Camus and Dostoevsky is a rather intense individual.

Please share your thoughts~

[Del Murder]

It's pretty true to the novel. In fact, it's as probably as good as an adaptation of that novel could have been. I really liked it.

I saw it in 3D and it was by far the best use of 3D I have ever seen in a movie. I usually hate 3D but this movie made it worth it.

[Laddy]

I agree with the above posts. THe film was an excellent work of acting, writing, cinematography, direction, and narrative.

Definitely an Oscar-worthy film in an already splendid year.

[Miriel]

I loved it. It was so well done. So magical and moving. And beautiful, oh my god what a gorgeous film. I cried like 3 different times.

The only thing I was kinda meh about was the actor who played the writer, there was something off about him. And also, I wish they had made it more clear that Pi really insisted that the tiger story was true. Because the way it was presented in the movie made it way less ambiguous than in the books. I also wish they had included more bits from the book like the blind encounter and the story about the mouse and the snake. But these are really small things, because overall I think it's the best movie I've seen all year.

[Quindiana Jones]

Aw, they don't have the blind encounter? Is the Frenchman in it at all?

[Formalhaut]

Wait, so it's not about this beauty?

Damn. This symbol never gets any love!

[Jinx]

Um...that's kind of where he gets his name. xD

Well, the shortened "Pi" from "Piscine."

[Formalhaut]

Being honest, I've never seen the film. When one of my friends first told me the title I assumed it was some stuffy documentary about some mathematician.

[Jinx]

I haven't seen the movie, just read the book.

[Quindiana Jones]

I only recently read the book. The start was like a normally good book for me; I read it at a typical pace for an interesting read. Just read a bit every day. Then they got on the ship, and I finished it that very same day. As I squealed to Jiro, before you read the "epilogue" part, it's a fantastic book with a wonderful storyline. Then the very end happens and it becomes so much better because of it. I read it again the next day, just to revel in the new information I was presented with.

I'll hopefully see the film whilst I'm in England, otherwise I'll see if there's a VO playing in Paris somewhere.

[Shorty]

My dad gave me this book to read last Christmas and even though I haven't made time to pick it up, he gave me a little bit of information that made me want to read it and I swear I went into this film thinking that the tiger was a representation of his father.

(SPOILER)
This is how I interpreted the film as I was watching it: it all made sense to me as the film went on - that his father went crazy from losing the rest of his family and his entire life's prospects with the ship going down and essentially became a manic beast who lost the will to care for himself and Pi had to do his best to take control of the situation and keep them surviving. At the end when the tiger leaves without saying goodbye, I interpreted it as his father dying as they reached the shore and was quite literally unable to say goodbye.

This may sound harsh to say, but it was quite disappointing coming to find that the tiger was a representation of Pi himself after building that story in my own mind. I still really loved the film - it was beautiful and captivating and I was interested at every moment. I choked up several times because of how emotional I found it, but I think I was looking at it deeper and/or in a different way because I saw it as a relationship with his father this entire time.

In any case, I loved it.

[Miriel]

I know the movie really pushed the idea that the 2nd story was the true story. But it's a bit more ambiguous in the book. And as far as I'm concerned, Richard Parker didn't represent anyone except Richard Parker. He was a tiger and that's that.

[Shorty]

I also like the idea of it being difficult to determine which of the stories are true. Wish they had done more of that instead of the kid immediately conceding that his first story wasn't true and telling the second one almost as if he were coming clean about something.

[Rantz]

I loved this movie. I really liked the point he made at the end about the differing stories, but I agree that I would probably have been happier if they had kept it more ambiguous.

The movie was really gorgeous and I enjoyed every minute of it.

[Heath]

I went into this film looking forward to it, but expecting that I might be a little disappointed. In truth, I think my only disappointment was that I saw it in 2D. I'm not a big fan of the current 3D film love-in, but this film was so visually impressive that I would have loved to have seen it in 3D. It was a real feast for the eyes.

As a book adaptation, I have to agree with the others who felt it was well done. It was. The novel had been one of those books sat on my 'to read' list for the best part of a decade and I only read it in about December 2011, and it quickly became one of my favourite books. One of the bits I really liked about the novel was the ending, and I worried with how the film might deal with it and how it makes you question what you've witnessed up until that point, but I thought the film did that really well. I didn't feel the film pushed you in a particular direction as which story to believe - it ended with the quote that suggests that the first version was true, in spite of the fact that Pi gives the alternative story quite quickly. To be honest, I think almost everybody I know who read the book wanted the first story to be true (and as a result, believed that), and I think that's how many who watched the film would appraise it.