Life of Pi

Ang Lee’s film version of Yann Martel’s exuberantly post-modernist stew of a tale is a flamboyantly episodic ramble—part high-flying philosophical discourse, part epic adventure, part literary puzzle, and the giddy, convoluted life story of Piscine “Pi” Patel, its central character/ narrator. The big selling point is the amazing tale Pi has to tell about losing his family in a shipwreck and yet also surviving adrift in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger from his parents’ zoo as his only companion. That part of the story, part mini-Titanic, part Robinson Crusoe, part nothing-you’ve-ever-seen-before, takes fine and duly spectacular form in Lee’s film. Cinemark 14, Feather River Cinemas and Paradise Cinema 7. Rated PG.