7. The Fun Option Is Always The Best - Life Of Pi
At the end of Life Of Pi the audience is given a question. Similar to whether its better to die a good man or live a monster and whether the spinning top was falling or not, were given two potential versions of what has happened. One is the visually impressive, if narratively flat CGI extravaganza involving tigers, whales and the only meerkats that dont come with silly accents while the other is a starkly depressing story of murder and cannibalism. Favouring myself a realist it has to be the latter; given the film is trying to be set in the real world, having Pi concoct an exciting, soul cleansing version of events that paints over his harrowing experience is considerably easier to swallow than the alternative. The film suggests otherwise, with Rafe Spalls writer (I cant quite decide if hes a better or worse choice than Tobey Maguire) picking the one with the tiger. Aw, thats cute because he likes the fun story, but isn't it a tad misleading from a film intending to be all about life and other big concepts? I know the films attempting to show a story convincing the existence of God (hard to swallow when its all clearly fictitious), but theres a line between accepting unexplainable events being spiritual and just picking a version of story because its more enjoyable and less depressing. So what if the nicer storys preferable, thats not how the real world works and for a film that posits such grand notions (albeit not really providing any definitive exploration of them) to conclude this is rather hokey.