2nd Act shines; 1st & 3rd Acts not as much due to dependence on narration and alternative offscreen ending

Rating: 7/10 (27 December 2012)

Is 'Life of Pi' meant as a story of great spiritual uplift--or a different story altogether--something more morose and sinister? Director Ang Lee, proffers up a twist ending where the film's protagonist, the young Pi Patel, has his amazing tale of survival called into question and replaced by an equally fantastic tale, albeit far less spiritually uplifting, than the first.
The film begins with a now grown Patel, residing in Canada and working as a professor. Patel relates his life to an aspiring writer in three parts: 1) his childhood and adolescence with his family in India; 2) his life as a castaway in a lifeboat with the tiger, 'Richard Parker'; and 3) the climax of his survivor story which includes an alternative story to the one he's just related. Unfortunately, Lee must rely on a narrator, the elder Patel, to tell a good part of the story. This is off-putting (particularly during the denouement), since the stodgy conversations between the professor and the writer, can't hold a candle to the magnificent visual scenes established with the younger Pi (played by brilliant newcomer, Suraj Sharma) as he fights for survival on the high seas.
The first third of the 'Life of Pi' is slow-moving. Pi's upbringing is quite unusual in one respect: his father owns a zoo. Otherwise Pi is presented as a sensitive but quirky kid who evinces a spiritual side, even at an early age. Pi's spirituality comes into play later, when his alternative story, presents him in a decidedly less pacifistic light.
Perhaps the most significant scene in the first third of the movie is when Pi's father forces him to watch Richard Parker devour a goat. Pi's 'loss of innocence' foreshadows his ultimate test, when he later comes face to face with Richard Parker in the boat. How does the tiger manage to pull the goat into his side of the cell? The apparent unrealistic and perplexing scene may suggest, on the other hand, that Patel's story is either whole or part fantasy.
The meat and potatoes of the 'Life of Pi' is the young man's incredible story of survival after his parents are killed, during the sinking of the Japanese freighter. 'Life of Pi' fascinates, when we see how Pi manages to cope with a tiger in his lifeboat. Before Richard Parker becomes the center of Pi's attention, two other animals, a zebra and orangutan are killed by an hyena, who in turn is killed by Richard Parker. The animals' demise takes on a symbolic meaning later on, when Pi proffers up the second story in the Third Act. The sudden disappearance of the three animals from the boat, once again suggests that perhaps Pi's story belongs in the realm of fantasy.
Ang Lee proves his mastery as a director of special effects, since most of the tiger sequences were created through the wizardry of computer generated images. From his inventiveness to creating a small raft of flotation devices to keep a safe distance from the tiger and the way in which he goes about finding food after a whale destroys his food stocks, the story of Pi and Richard Parker proves quite absorbing. The taming of the tiger is the high point of Pi's 'man versus nature' saga before the Second Act crisis.
The crisis occurs when Pi lands on the 'bionic' island. Again, the island appears to symbolize Pi's crisis in the alternative reality the elder Pi relates to the writer in the Third Act. Once Pi discovers that the island's water turns acidic at night and is devouring fish, as well as a tooth in a carnivorous plant, he concludes that he'll die if he remains on the island.
The elder Patel finally reveals that his castaway story might merely be a 'coping mechanism'. Patel reveals that he told Japanese investigators of the possibility that what 'might' have happened was that he ended up in a lifeboat with his mother, a sailor with a broken leg and a crew member who his father had a disagreeable encounter earlier on, before the freighter sunk. The crew member ends up killing the sailor and his mother after his mother puts him on a raft. Patel returns to kill the crew member. The fight with the crew member recalls the tooth he finds in the plant on the island. Leaving the island might be symbolic of his decision to leave the situation where he found himself observing how his mother was thrown to the sharks. And finally, when Richard Parker fails to turn back and acknowledge him, this jarring event symbolizes Pi's acceptance of a loss of innocence and the reality that Story #1 was a fantasy.
There are hints that Story #2 may have been worse than Pi initially lets on. Was Pi possibly guilty of cannibalism? It's interesting that there was an actual Richard Parker in the 19th century who was a victim of cannibalism after a shipwreck and the character's name also figures in an Edgar Allan Poe novel, again a victim of cannibalism at sea.
Ang Lee, as well as author Martel, have made it clear that they both prefer Pi's spiritually uplifting tale of survival to the downbeat one involving murder. The elder Patel makes his preference clear in the film itself. The second story appears to be thrown in to contrast it with the uplifting message of Story #1. Story #2 then perhaps becomes a cautionary tale--similar to the loss of innocence moment when Richard Parker kills the goat. Lee has no problem with such ambiguity as long as the feel good message is highlighted.
In the end, the Life of Pi 'main course' will be remembered for Pi's 'story #1' and Ang Lee's masterful visual presentation. The rest, including the lumbering narration, simplistic spiritual stance and ambiguous alternative ending, are the leftovers.