For a while, I considered myself lucky that I was never in an English class that required Life of Pi as reading for the course. I had always heard mixed opinions, mostly leaning towards the negative side. That is why when I heard Life of Pi was getting a theatrical adaptation, I couldn’t help but preemptively judge it as a sub-par film made to cash on a book that many high school teenagers would be reading. Thankfully, I was proven horribly wrong.

Life of Pi is about a boy named Piscine Molitor Patel (nicknamed Pi), who is trapped on a lifeboat with a tiger after a devastating shipwreck. That’s all I’m going to say, because I don’t want to spoil some interesting points for anyone. Of course, if it was just a regular boy trapped on this lifeboat, the film would probably be less interesting, and Pi would probably not have survived. Yes, he survives, which we as an audience already know, since the story is being told as a flashback. But Pi is no ordinary boy. He is intelligent, he is resourceful, he is curious and most of all, he is engaging. His character constantly keeps the viewer interested in the story. At one point, Pi worshipped three different religions, which becomes a central point of his character.

And really, that’s what the movie is about. It is not simply a boy on a boat with a tiger; it is his spiritual journey through an almost unimaginable situation. However, this is where some viewers may be lost, or at least, those who didn’t read the book. The trailers for this film promised a story about simply a boy who survives a shipwreck. There is much more to the narrative than that. In fact, there is quite a bit of build-up about Pi and his family before they even board the boat that will inevitably sink. We don’t know why the boat sinks, and it becomes an important point later in the story. We are led to interpret, or at least in my case, that the sinking of the ship was simply an act of God, something which makes almost too much sense in the context of the story. While I certainly had no problem with the depth of the story, it could catch casual viewers who were expecting a surface-level, yet visually appealing adventure film off-guard.

And those are two other things Life of Pi does superbly. Despite having emotional and spiritual depth, it does not sacrifice an entertainment factor to possess these qualities. It works remarkably well, even when unduly categorized as just an “adventure film”. However, the one “true” adventure scene, involving an island of carnivorous plants, is a little jarring in comparison to the rest of the film’s relative realism, but it still manages the same sense of depth. The visuals are also amazing, and even the 3D adds to the effect, instead of distracting as it is sometimes known to do.

Because of this visual achievement, some critics are hailing Life of Pi as “the next Avatar“. I should certainly hope not. Avatar, while visually appealing, was long and meandering with a fairly unoriginal plot that was rehashed from so many films before it. Life of Pi is one of the most original films of this year, with a memorable plot that not only engages viewers, but makes them think. Any movie that makes me want to eagerly read a book that is required school reading has pulled off quite an accomplishment.

4.0/5.0

Life of Pi is rated PG.