10 Genius Movie Moments When Unreliable Narrators Changed EVERYTHING
7. Two Very Different Stories Told - Life Of Pi
If anyone sat you down and told you the events that Pi regaled to Rafe Spall's author in Life of Pi, you simply wouldn't believe them. That was exactly the point, and why Pi's uncle sent the writer to him, claiming he had a story that would make you believe in God.
While transporting their zoo animals from India to Canada, the ship carrying Pi's family sank in a storm. Pi himself was the sole survivor, making away on a life raft along with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.
The fantastical story of survival saw Pi and Richard Parker survive together after the other animals were killed. However, exactly how much of it was true is completely up in the air. Pi essentially confirmed so himself.
When he was visited in hospital by insurance people, Pi told of a different, more believable tale in which the roles of the animals were given to other survivors from the ship, himself as the tiger as he killed one of the other survivors after they killed his mother. When Spall's character figured this out, Pi told him that there were two stories told, both that ended with him losing his family and enduring a traumatic experience, but there was no way of knowing which was true. It all came down to which story he preferred which, naturally, was the one with the tiger.