Krishna
Visually exhilarating, and very true to the book. Is that enough to call it a great movie?
If you read my review of the book earlier in the blog (The Life of Pi), then you know that I did not like the book very much due to its preachy and saccharine tone.
The movie fortunately tones down on the preaching. They start with his identifying multiple religions but then stops short of his ‘everything is great, everyone is good, there is no evil in the world’ kind of worldview and I think that this has made the film more watchable. There is some of that philosophy when he claims that without the tiger (named Richard Parker) he would have died and regrets that it did not even say goodbye when it left, is still like the cloying sentiment in the movie as well.
The initial view of Pondicherry feels real and the songs and conversation are all in authentic Tamil (Though the accent of the mother Gita, can do with some improvement). The songs and the feel of the place all are definitely good.
The book has impressive visuals. The scene where Pi, underwater, watches the ship sinking down and realizes that most people are dead is like a painting. The boat sequence in the beginning, with an ape, Hyena, and the zebra are lovely. The tiger is impressive and his struggles with it, first to not become a prey and later, to control it into coexistence, are all nicely told.
The island made of seaweed is shown slightly differently in the movie than in the book.
Some of the gross scatological details (Pi drinking his own pee and eating the tiger dung to survive?) are mercifully missing.
When the movie ends, you still feel that the story is improbable, and in the movie version, you cannot help compare it with other movies that are based on a single character – think Castaway, for example – and you feel that this movie does not measure up to it completely.
How is Suraj Sharma, an untrained actor picked since he looked the part? My impressions are mixed. He did not do anything to impress. He was adequate, maybe; anyway most of the work for him was done by the visuals. Irrfan Khan, as the adult Pi, was much more eloquent, even if he came for just a couple of scenes.
But, as a technological marvel, the movie stands out. The boat scenes were shot in a swimming pool, and made to look like open ocean and the tiger was all animated! So was the fish and most other animals. Amazing work, and brilliant results.
I would say a 5/10
— Krishna