Looking Back at 2010s Films: Life of Pi (2012)

By Tanner Smith

So this is the book they said was “unfilmable”…

The visual style of “Life of Pi” made for a great moviegoing experience for me, seeing it on the big screen and in 3D (I didn’t see this film in IMAX and it was still pretty amazing). Maybe I can’t relive that same experience, but it’s not like the visuals went away when it hit home media, and it’s not like they still can’t be appreciated either.

But style aside, Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” is still a pretty memorable film. It’s deep, it’s adventurous, it has a great hook (a young man and a tiger are stranded together on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean), Suraj Sharma is an engaging lead, and the effects used to bring the tiger, “Richard Parker,” to life are nothing short of brilliant.

And of course, it’s still amazing to look at, whether you see it on the big screen or small.

A lot of people have problems with the “revelatory” scene at the end, mainly because there are no visual aids. I personally think it was the right choice to just hear about it, because we can ask ourselves, “Did it really happen like that?”

“Life of Pi” remains to be a great achievement in top-notch effects and narrative storytelling.