Mmm ... Pi!

Rating: Null/10 (17 January 2001)

Being a genius can give you nasty headaches. That simple notion, at the heart of Darren Aronofsky's `Pi,' defies the complexity of this brilliant little indie thriller. Sean Gullette plays Max Cohen, a mathematics/electronics savant who believes that matter, the world around us - indeed, our very existence - has a pattern to it that can be expressed as a number. Max devotes his life to finding this mysterious 216-digit number. This has two results. First, Max acts weird. He's paranoid, reclusive, disturbed and vigorously anti-social. Second, he's pursued by people (presumably those who have more friends and fewer headaches) who might profit from the number: both Hasidic Jews, who think it's the code to the Torah and signals the coming of the messianic age, and Wall Street fat cats. Is `Pi' profound or just odd? It's some of both, I suppose, but make no mistake: The film is visually stunning, and has a lot to say about the burden of genius, the quest for knowledge - and maybe even about the existence of God. Betcha can't say that about the latest from Adam Sandler. Health warning: `Pi' has a throbbing score and is filled with grainy, flickering images. A quick finger on the fast-forward button can help viewers avoid Max-like headaches.