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Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" is a miraculous achievement of storytelling and a landmark of visual mastery. Inspired by a worldwide best-seller that many readers must have assumed was unfilmable, it is a triumph over its difficulties. It is also a moving spiritual achievement, a movie whose title could have been shortened to "life."

The story involves the 227 days that its teenage hero spends drifting across the Pacific in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. They find themselves in the same boat after an amusing and colorful prologue, which in itself could have been enlarged into an exciting family film. Then it expands into a parable of survival, acceptance and adaptation. I imagine even Yann Martel , the novel's French-Canadian author, must be delighted to see how the usual kind of Hollywood manhandling has been sidestepped by Lee's poetic idealism.

The story begins in a small family zoo in Pondichery, India, where the boy christened Piscine is raised. Piscine translates from French to English as "swimming pool," but in an India where many more speak English than French, his playmates of course nickname him "pee." Determined to put an end to this, he adopts the name " Pi ," demonstrating an uncanny ability to write down that mathematical constant that begins with 3.14 and never ends. If Pi is a limitless number, that is the perfect name for a boy who seems to accept no limitations.

The zoo goes broke, and Pi's father puts his family and a few valuable animals on a ship bound for Canada. In a bruising series of falls, a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and the lion tumble into the boat with the boy, and are swept away by high seas. His family is never seen again, and the last we see of the ship is its lights disappearing into the deep — a haunting shot that reminds me of the sinking train in Bill Forsyth's " Housekeeping " (1987).

This is a hazardous situation for the boy ( Suraj Sharma ), because the film steadfastly refuses to sentimentalize the tiger (fancifully named "Richard Parker"). A crucial early scene at the zoo shows that wild animals are indeed wild and indeed animals, and it serves as a caution for children in the audience, who must not make the mistake of thinking this is a Disney tiger.

The heart of the film focuses on the sea journey, during which the human demonstrates that he can think with great ingenuity and the tiger shows that it can learn. I won't spoil for you how those things happen. The possibilities are surprising.

What astonishes me is how much I love the use of 3-D in "Life of Pi." I've never seen the medium better employed, not even in " Avatar ," and although I continue to have doubts about it in general, Lee never uses it for surprises or sensations, but only to deepen the film's sense of places and events.

Let me try to describe one point of view. The camera is placed in the sea, looking up at the lifeboat and beyond it. The surface of the sea is like the enchanted membrane upon which it floats. There is nothing in particular to define it; it is just … there. This is not a shot of a boat floating in the ocean. It is a shot of ocean, boat and sky as one glorious place.

Still trying not to spoil: Pi and the tiger Richard Parker share the same possible places in and near the boat. Although this point is not specifically made, Pi's ability to expand the use of space in the boat and nearby helps reinforce the tiger's respect for him. The tiger is accustomed to believing it can rule all space near him, and the human requires the animal to rethink that assumption.

Most of the footage of the tiger is of course CGI, although I learn that four real tigers are seen in some shots. The young actor Suraj Sharma contributes a remarkable performance, shot largely in sequence as his skin color deepens, his weight falls and deepness and wisdom grow in his eyes.

The writer W.G. Sebold once wrote, "Men and animals regard each other across a gulf of mutual incomprehension." This is the case here, but during the course of 227 days, they come to a form of recognition. The tiger, in particular, becomes aware that he sees the boy not merely as victim or prey, or even as master, but as another being.

The movie quietly combines various religious traditions to enfold its story in the wonder of life. How remarkable that these two mammals, and the fish beneath them and birds above them, are all here. And when they come to a floating island populated by countless meerkats, what an incredible sequence Lee creates there.

The island raises another question: Is it real? Is this whole story real? I refuse to ask that question. "Life of Pi" is all real, second by second and minute by minute, and what it finally amounts to is left for every viewer to decide. I have decided it is one of the best films of the year.

Read and make comments here .

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film Credits

Life of Pi (2012)

Rated PG for emotional thematic content throughout, and some scary action sequences and peril

127 minutes

Tabu as Gita

Suraj Sharma as Pi

Rafe Spall as Writer

Gerard Depardieu as Cook

Based on the novel by

• Yann Martel

Directed by

• David Magee

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The tale of a young man, a tiger and God, Yann Martel ‘s bestselling novel “ Life of Pi ” had been dubbed “unfilmable” countless times before Ang Lee’s adaptation screened. The Oscar-winning helmer handily silenced skeptics, delivering a pic praised by critics as a remarkable visual achievement.

Several reviewers felt compelled to catalog the stunning images of the survival parable, acknowledging the stellar work by the visual effects team and cinematographer Claudio Miranda. Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal fondly recalled, among other memorable sights, “a whale breaching in the night, immensely phosphorescent.”

But perhaps the most reverential praise was reserved for the lifelike computer-generated imagery of Richard Parker, Pi’s Bengal tiger companion. Not particularly enthusiastic about the film, A.O. Scott of the New York Times still described the physical details of the beast as “so perfectly rendered that you will swear that Richard Parker is real.”

The 3D also drew special attention, including favorable comparisons to James Cameron’s stereoscopic milestone “Avatar.” Even the Chicago Sun-Times’ Roger Ebert, a vocal skeptic of the technology, praised Lee’s use of the cinematic tool.

“What astonishes me is how much I love the use of 3D in ‘Life of Pi,’ ” Ebert wrote. “Although I continue to have doubts about it in general, Lee never uses it for surprises or sensations, but only to deepen the film’s sense of places and events.”

The visual pleasures of the film might have been universally praised, but critics were less in sync about the film’s framing device, featuring adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) telling his story to a writer (Rafe Spall) decades later. Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times referred to their conversations as the “weakest link” in an “otherwise lyrical film.”

However, other writers were more focused on how these scenes establish a deeper, existential twist for the visual feast. While David Edelstein of New York Magazine described the scenes as “clunky,” he suggested that they pay off.

“The movie has a sting in its tail that puts what you’ve seen in a startlingly harsh context,” Edelstein wrote.

Variety said: “Summoning the most advanced digital-filmmaking technology to deliver the most old-fashioned kind of audience satisfaction, this exquisitely beautiful adaptation of Yann Martel’s castaway saga has a sui generis quality that’s never less than beguiling, even if its fable-like construction and impeccable artistry come up a bit short in terms of truly gripping, elemental drama.” — Justin Chang

Eye on the Oscars 2013: Best Picture Are directors behind punishing run times? | The upset that wasn’t an upset: ‘Shakespeare in Love’ Critics praise, punch nominees Pointed critiques accompany plaudits for the contenders, giving voters plenty to chew on “Amour” | “Argo” | “Beasts of the Southern Wild” | “Django Unchained” | “Les Miserables” | “Life of Pi” | “Lincoln” | “Silver Linings Playbook” | “Zero Dark Thirty”

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‘Life of Pi’ Review: A Boy and a Tiger, Burning Brightly

Human ingenuity and animal grace course through this rich, inventive play about difficult choices and the stories we tell to make sense of them.

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By Alexis Soloski

The butterflies enter first, quivering gaily atop their sticks. Then a giraffe pokes her head in. A goat gambols. A hyena cackles. One zebra runs on. Then another. An orangutan swings through while her baby reposes on a branch nearby. Above, monkeys and meerkats chitter. In the first act of “Life of Pi,” a menagerie — menacing, delightful — entrenches itself on the stage of Broadway’s Gerald Schoenfeld Theater.

With dazzling imagination and sublime control, the show’s cast and crew conjure a delirious, dynamic, highly pettable world. And oh, is it a wonder. Though the play is ostensibly about one boy’s fraught survival after a disaster, that story is somewhat thin. “Life of Pi” instead succeeds as a broader tribute to human ingenuity and animal grace.

Directed by Max Webster and adapted by the playwright Lolita Chakrabarti from Yann Martel’s Booker Prize-winning novel, “Life of Pi” begins more somberly, in Mexico, in 1978. A grayed-out hospital room houses a sole patient, Pi Patel (Hiran Abeysekera). A Japanese cargo ship en route to Canada has sunk. Among its passengers were Pi and his family, who had set out from Pondicherry, India. And among its freight were the animals Pi’s zookeeper father tended. All aboard have drowned, except Pi, a traumatized 17-year-old who washed up in this fishing village after 227 days lost at sea.

Visiting him this morning are Mr. Okamoto (Daisuke Tsuji), a representative from the Japanese Ministry of Transport, and Lulu Chen (Kirstin Louie), from the Canadian Embassy. These guests have been charged with learning what happened to Pi. For their benefit, he spins a fantastic tale — incredible in every sense — about sharing a lifeboat with animals, initially several then finally just one, Richard Parker, an enormous, sinuous, very hungry Bengal tiger.

Between Richard Parker and Pi, adamant carnivore and lifelong vegetarian, there is a desperate struggle for dominance. Richard Parker needs to eat. Pi would prefer not to be eaten. But these two passengers eventually achieve a détente, even a kind of friendship, a hallucinatory acknowledgment of what is human within the animal and animal within the human. It is the example of Richard Parker — and his companionship, however imagined — that allows Pi to survive.

“You’re the only reason I’m alive,” a despairing Pi says to his friend, midjourney. “It’s just you and me.”

But “Life of Pi” is a much larger affair than this small-man-big-cat duo. The cast runs to 24 actors, many of them also puppeteers, with a small fleet of crew members to make the whole show seaworthy. (The play originated in Sheffield, England, before moving to the West End and then to the American Repertory Theater in Boston, so yes, it floats.) Martel’s novel — absorbing, florid — is a work of magical realism. Webster, the director, makes sure to deliver the magic and the realism both.

Nodding to techniques pioneered by Robert Lepage and Improbable Theater, Webster encourages a beautiful synchrony of lighting (Tim Lutkin), video (Andrzej Goulding), sound (Carolyn Downing) and set (Tim Hatley, who also designed the costumes). Aided by the other production elements, the mise-en-scène constantly moves and shifts. The room becomes the boat. The boat recedes into the room. Sometimes both room and boat are there at once and a person might have to clap her hands across her mouth to stop herself from oohing, especially when the schools of fish surface or the stars begin to flicker. We are in the realm of fantasy here, of symbolism, but squint just a little and waves appear. Even from the mezzanine, I could feel — almost — a salt spray.

And the puppetry ! Between Milky White of “Into the Woods” and the dinosaur and mammoth of “The Skin of Our Teeth,” New York has not been starved of extraordinary stick and cloth creations. But the animals here, designed by Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell, with movement direction by Caldwell, prowl and canter and leap with astonishing character and style. And Richard Parker, animated by three puppeteers at any given time, is the show’s striped jewel. Chuffing, growling and panting as he stalks the boat’s perimeter, he is at once beguiling, gentlemanly and quite dangerous. Abeysekera — a petite hurricane of an actor with reeling limbs and a clarion voice — is excellent in an exhausting role.

But Richard Parker (very briefly voiced by Brian Thomas Abraham) makes the more indelible impression. When he finally slunk onto dry land, I worried for him as I did not worry for Pi. He seemed so thin.

Toward the start of his tale, Pi promises his listeners that his story will make them believe in God. But while Martel’s novel has a deep and sometimes tendentious concern with religion and philosophy, Chakrabarti’s adaptation engages with these questions only glancingly.

At its most abstract, this a play about how we come to terms with our own choices, even with our own survival, and the stories we might tell to make those choices and that survival make sense. Trauma requires language, Pi insists. If you don’t find words to compass it, he says, “it becomes a wordless darkness, and you will never defeat it.” Yet language tends to recede whenever the animals are onstage. Want wonder? Want divinity? Look to the tiger burning bright. And then look to the human hands that tend the flame.

Eventually Pi offers an alternative version of what happened on that lifeboat, which Webster also stages. Stripped of animals, allegory and visual pleasure, this account is more plausible, though much darker. “Which is the better story?” Pi asks.

Depends what he means by “better.” But of course it’s the one with the animals. Because faced with such horror, or even with the ordinary hardships of daily life, anyone would prefer the fantasy, especially when it is rendered with such richness and invention. (A different show might have questioned the morality of extracting such pleasure, such delight, from a tale of privation. Not this one.) Significantly, neither story redeems what Pi has suffered. But only one has a tiger in it.

That roaring that you will hear at the show’s end? It’s the sound of a standing ovation.

Life of Pi At the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater, Manhattan; lifeofpibway.com . Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes.

Review by Brian Eggert November 22, 2012

In Ang Lee’s Life of Pi , a marriage between spiritual faith and the wonder of the natural world offers audiences a reflective parable for religious understanding and even the very nature of storytelling. The harrowing tale involves an Indian boy and a Bengal tiger on a lifeboat in the Pacific for several months, and as they battle each other for territorial superiority, the human and the animal begin to understand each other. Through their exchange, the screenplay by David Magee, based on Yann Martel’s 2001 novel, meditates on how as individuals, we see the world as we choose to see it—whether that be the emotions we observe in animal behavior, the meanings we project onto events in our lives, or how we amplify our experiences for effect. Through the course of the film, we take part in a beautiful worldview, rich with visual spectacles and a spiritual epiphany that even the most devout cynics will cherish.

The film opens in Pondicherry, a former French colony in India, where the family of our young protagonist, Piscene Patel (played at age 12 by Ayush Tandon), runs a zoo. Schoolboys remind him that his name, taken from the French word for “swimming pool,” sounds like “pissing,” and so he changes it to Pi and establishes his nickname by memorizing the mathematical constant’s neverending tail. An inquisitive sort, Pi was raised Hindu, but to understand God, he explores Christianity and Islam as well, adopting trademarks from each religion for his own uses, much to his strict father’s dismay. When Pi’s father must sell the family zoo and the animals, he books passage to Canada aboard a Japanese ship. Pi—now a teenager and played by Suraj Sharma, an inexperienced actor who shows astounding range, is forced to leave his home and the young dancer (Shravanthi Sainath) with whom he’s fallen in love. In rough seas over the Marinas Trench, the Japanese ship sinks, Pi’s family dies, and he’s left on a 20-foot lifeboat with a single rat, a ravenous hyena, an injured zebra, a protective orangutan, and a large Bengal tiger known as “Richard Parker.”

When the inevitable collision of hunger and territorial clashes subside, Pi is left floating on a makeshift raft connected by rope to the main lifeboat, which Richard Parker has conquered. Two hundred twenty-seven days pass as man and beast attempt to coexist, and the film carefully spells out how Pi and Richard Parker form a unique trust over battles for food and space under the lifeboat’s protective tarp. Together they witness tremendous sights, from a wave of flying fish to a bioluminescent ocean surface breached by a whale, from another massive storm to a green living island populated by meerkats. Structurally, Pi’s adventure is bookended by modern-day scenes in Canada, where a wise middle-aged Pi (Irrfan Khan) recounts his adventure to a skeptical Canadian author (Rafe Spall) looking for his next book’s inspiration. At the very beginning and end, the film alternates between scenes in Pi’s contemporary home and flashbacks to his life’s story, while the central piece of the story remains Pi’s account of his survival.

At no point in the film does Lee betray the viewer’s suspension of disbelief, despite the vast use of computerized special effects employed to make these otherwise inconceivable movie moments come to life. The effects used to render the zoo animals throughout the picture are nothing short of amazing, particularly the CGI employed for Richard Parker. Although many scenes using four different tigers were shot, much of Richard Parker’s behavior would have been impossible for trainers to safely allow for a live animal, and the integration of real-life and computer-generated imagery is flawless. Wild attacks and even a seasick tiger are realized brilliantly, while the film’s sinking ship sequence contains a haunting exquisiteness. Shot in various international locales in Montreal and India, the production required Lee’s crew to build a massive tank in Taiwan for the sea sequences, each augmented by a vast amount of artificially designed imagery. The splendor inhabiting every frame of Pi’s seafaring survival story displays a painterly quality added to the horizon where the water and sky meet, and therein reflect one another in fantastic, illusory ways.

Lee’s visual mastery also makes the best use of the 3D device yet, even better than James Cameron’s Avatar, or any number of stop-motion animation projects to showcase the effect. It’s not that Lee sends animals reaching out to touch his audience; rather, he gives the adventure depth and space. Water seems to exist on an expansive surface, and with Pi’s lifeboat often a speck on this open plane, Lee truly places his viewer in the scene in ways no filmmaker has conceived before. At other times, Lee manipulates his aspect ratios to better frame a scene or action. At one point, the rectangle frame becomes a pan & scan square with Pi’s boat in the center, accentuating his isolation in the open sea. During the flying fish stampede, the film’s 1.85:1 frame widens to 2.40:1, and we follow a daredevil tuna chasing after its prey, the hind fin just bleeding out of the frame’s margins to enhance the effect. Such details occur throughout Life of Pi , but they never take precedence over the spiritual significance of the story.

Because of its more extravagant elements, Martel’s source text was considered technically unfilmable for years, and after several other directors left the project (among them M. Night Shyamalan, Alfonso Cuarón, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet), the pronounced challenges attracted the Taiwan-born American director. Lee’s diversity of projects begins with cherished period dramas Sense and Sensibility (1995) and The Ice Storm (1997), continues through his martial arts reinvention of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), and achieves rare explorations of intimacy in Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Lust, Caution (2007). But then, Lee is also capable of realizing grand epics such as the underseen Civil War piece Ride with the Devil (1999) or bringing a cartoony quality to expressive superheroes with Hulk (2003). He finds a perfect balance between the emotional profundity of his past efforts and his own visual ambition in Life of Pi , a project that sets a bold new standard for the use of 3D and CGI but also has a thoughtful and understanding message inside an incredible visual experience.

Early in Life of Pi, the Canadian author is told Pi’s story will make him believe in God, but perhaps a better assessment is that this tale will invoke a sense of understanding toward religions and stimulate an exploration of faith. The ways in which this is accomplished in the film an audience should discover for themselves. But when Pi’s inevitable survival comes to pass, the film ends by asking questions about what we have seen and how we interpret what has happened. What this critic has seen is a marvelous piece of visual poetry with insights that require contemplation long after the visual awe has subsided. Lee has created a superbly balanced motion picture that moves special effects and 3D beyond the realm of pure entertainment augmentation; where other films use such technical modes for thrills alone, Lee creates a breathless experience both visceral and philosophical—and also unforgettable.

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Booklover Book Reviews

Life of Pi, Book Review: Yann Martel’s life-affirming gem

The Life of Pi novel, Yann Martel’s debut, truly deserves the accolades it has received. I was thoroughly engaged and entertained by this tale. Read my full review including some memorable book quotes below and we answer your burning question – was Life of Pi based on a true story?

Life of Pi Book Synopsis

The 2002 Man Booker Prize-winning international bestseller, Life of Pi

One boy, one boat, one tiger . . .

After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan – and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary and best-loved works of fiction in recent years.

A Lesson in Persistence: Yann Martel’s manuscript was rejected by at least five London publishing houses before being accepted by Knopf Canada, which published it in September 2001. The novel has since sold more than ten million copies worldwide.

Genre: Literature, Fantasy, Action-Adventure

Disclosure: If you click a link in this post we may earn a small commission to help offset our running costs.

Book Review

Life of Pi is poignant, inspirational and life-affirming.

The predominant narrator is our protagonist Piscine Molitor Patel, who prefers to be called Pi. Interspersed within Pi’s telling of his story of survival as a teenager, is commentary from a reporter writing an article on the life of Pi many years later.

Pi grew up in a zoo and his knowledge of animal behaviours and traits is the foundation from which he shapes his view of the world and people in general. Even the most dour of individuals could not help liking this character. His self-possession and belief is utterly charming.

Irreverent observational gems, such as the following comment by Pi when delivering his considered review of the castaway survival manual he finds in the lifeboat, consistently brought a smile to my face.

“The injunction not to drink urine was quite unnecessary. No-one called ‘pissin’ during his childhood would be caught dead with a cup of pee at his lips, even alone in a life boat in the middle of the Pacific.”

I also found the disarming simplicity of the 16-year-old character’s discussions on the differences and similarities of the world’s three major religions and his thoughts on religion in general both appealing and quite profound.

In Life of Pi Yann Martel has written such a very clever story.

There is often conjecture about novels that go on to win high-profile awards such as the Man Booker Prize, but in my opinion there should be no argument when it comes to this novel.

This story will be one that stays with me long after reading it. I strongly recommend men and women, young and old acquainting themselves with this character Pi – he is one of the most admirable, believable and inspirational characters you are likely to meet in the world of fiction.

“It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.”

Audiobook format

I listened to Life of Pi on audio and strongly recommend this format. The version I listened to was narrated by Jeff Woodman . His delivery really brought to life the humour and irony the protagonist manages to find in his dire predicament.

If you haven’t tried an audiobook before this is a wonderful example of the real value of this reading format. The latest Audible edition of the audiobook is narrated by British comedian, actor and broadcaster Sanjeev Bhaskar — listen to an audiobook sample. Sounds fabulous also.

“The world isn’t just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn’t that make life a story?”

The Story 5 / 5 ;  The Writing 5 / 5

Where to get your copy of Life of Pi

More inspiring reads.

• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• The Museum of Forgotten Memories by Anstey Harris

More Life of Pi book reviews

‘Martel displays the clever voice and tremendous storytelling skills of an emerging master.’ – Publishers Weekly

‘Life of Pi could renew your faith in the ability of novelists to invest even the most outrageous scenario with plausible life.’-  The New York Times Book Review

‘Despite the extraordinary premise and literary playfulness, one reads Life of Pi not so much as an allegory or magical-realist fable, but as an edge-of-seat adventure.’ – The Guardian 

‘A real adventure: brutal, tender, expressive, dramatic, and disarmingly funny. . . . It’s difficult to stop reading when the pages run out.’ —  San Francisco Chronicle

Was Life of Pi based on a true story?

No, the original novel was purely fictional. But director Ang Lee wanted the movie adaptation to have depth and realism, and so reportedly consulted with real-life shipwreck survivor Steven Callahan, who spent 76 days on a life raft.

Why was Life of Pi controversial?

Some have suggested that Yann Martel’s 2001 novel is very similar to Brazilian author Moacyr Scliar’s 1981 novella  Max and the Cats , about a man in a lifeboat with a jaguar.

The Life of Pi Movie

This novel was adapted for the big screen by screenwriter David Magee and directed by Ang Lee . The movie won four Oscars including Best Director and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.

About the Book Author, Yann Martel

Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963 of Canadian parents. After studying philosophy at university, he travelled and worked at odd jobs before turning to writing. In addition to the Man Booker Prize-winning  Life of Pi , which has been translated into over fifty languages and has sold over thirteen million copies worldwide, he is the author of the novels  Self, Beatrice and Virgil  and  The High Mountains of Portugal , the stories  The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios , and the collection of letters to the Prime Minister of Canada,  What is Stephen Harper Reading?  He lives in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Watch a video of an interview with Yann Martel on Life of Pi — source Manufacturing Intellect .

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A booklover with diverse reading interests, who has been reviewing books and sharing her views and opinions on this website and others since 2009.

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Life of Pi review – the animals are the stars in this puppet-powered show

Wyndham’s theatre, London This stage version of Yann Martel’s novel is exquisitely designed but the wonder leaks away in flat-footed storytelling

L ife of Pi had a first life as a Booker prize-winning novel by Yann Martel and a second as an Oscar-winning film by Ang Lee. Both were utterly captivating. Now comes playwright Lolita Chakrabarti’s stage spectacular ( first presented in Sheffield in 2019 ) about Piscine “Pi” Patel, the zookeeper’s son from Pondicherry who claims to have survived a shipwreck in a life-raft with a Bengal tiger in tow.

The magic here lies firmly in aesthetics, from the teeming menagerie of large-scale puppets, exquisitely designed by Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell, to visual effects that surge, dazzle and undulate like ocean waves (stage design by Tim Hatley with video design by Andrzej Goulding and lighting by Tim Lutkin).

The script and characterisation are flat-footed by comparison: “I’ve had a terrible trip,” says Pi from his hospital bed at the start (the framing device here is different from the book and film). It is meant to be wry but, like much of the dialogue, lands with a thud.

Martel’s original, unreliable narration left enough space for us to decide if Pi’s story was one of hope, faith and tiger-taming or of survivor’s guilt, trauma and delusion. His subtle explorations of truth and the necessary comforts of make-believe are shoe-horned in as soundbites about God, the beauty of the world and storytelling.

The visual effects seem to compete with, and ultimately drown out, the quieter, more philosophical elements of the drama, not leaving enough room for Pi’s existential rumination, which is key to his tale.

As Pi, Hiran Abeysekera looks every inch the puckish man-boy and is incredibly light on his feet. He plays him as a 17-year-old survivor with PTSD in hospital, and as a slightly maniacal castaway on the boat. He is good at conjuring alarm in whooping, adrenalised highs but seems tense and overwrought in the softer moments.

The characters on the whole are vividly drawn but ironed to a cartoonish flatness, and the tone between them is barking and shrill. Pi’s father (Nicholas Khan) has a touch of Basil Fawlty, his mother (Mina Anwar) and sister (Payal Mistry) lack distinction and ancillary characters feel like cardboard cut-outs. As a children’s show, the jokes hold but an older audience feels the lack of a finer, more subtle script to square up to the sophisticated visuals.

Still, under Max Webster’s direction, the stage is full of energy and surprise. “Once upon a time,” says Pi, as he takes us on the first of many flashbacks, which transform the stage in seconds. There is a flurry of butterflies, a starry sky, iridescent shoals of fish and immersive storms that wrack the extremities of the stage.

Zebras, giraffes, hyenas and turtles are manipulated sublimely, transporting us to the family zoo and then to the high seas. The first sight of Richard Parker, the tiger, is a breathtaking moment and emulates the CGI effects in Lee’s film. The life-raft rises out of the floor and the back screen cracks open from its middle, like a suitcase, as the family sets sail for Canada. These animals and effects are a wonder to behold and become the real stars of this show.

At Wyndham’s theatre, London , until 27 February.

• Lolita Chakrabarti
• Yann Martel

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Life of Pi — Yann Martel’s “The Life Of Pi”: Book Review

Yann Martel's "The Life of Pi": Book Review

• Categories: Book Review Life of Pi Literature Review

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Words: 980 |

Published: Oct 2, 2020

Words: 980 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Works Cited

• Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. Harcourt, 2001.
• Bocking, Brian. “Life of Pi, Virtue, and the Question of Religion.” Literature and Theology, vol. 29, no. 2, 2015, pp. 150–162.
• Forbes, Bruce David. “Cognitive Ecology, Religion, and The Life of Pi.” CrossCurrents, vol. 63, no. 2, 2013, pp. 233–252.
• Gifford, James. “The Limits of Literary Interpretation : Life of Pi and the Philosophical Significance of Animal Symbolism.” Journal of Critical Animal Studies, vol. 10, no. 2, 2012, pp. 62–79.
• Higginson, James. “Animals, Empathy, and the Ethics of Narrative: Yann Martel’s Life of Pi.” Philosophy and Literature, vol. 37, no. 2, 2013, pp. 404–417.
• Jolly, Margaretta. “Sacred Spaces and Literary Practices in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi.” Religion and the Arts, vol. 17, no. 1–2, 2013, pp. 127–152.
• Kavenna, Joanna. “The Resilience of Religion in Life of Pi.” The Spectator, 30 June 2018, www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-resilience-of-religion-in-life-of-pi.
• Malik, Ameena. “Faith, Fiction, and the Human Journey: Yann Martel’s Life of Pi.” Religion and the Arts, vol. 20, no. 5, 2016, pp. 625–644.
• Mathur, Piyush. “Animals as Narrative Devices in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi.” Journal of Indian Writing in English, vol. 42, no. 1, 2014, pp. 1–8.
• Sinclair, Mark. “Writing Faith: Pi Patel and Yann Martel.” Literary Imagination, vol. 18, no. 3, 2016, pp. 348–366.

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