The Movie: Life of Pi

(Spoiler alert, this talks about details of the movie. If you are planning to see it soon, you may not want to read it.)

I finally took my 6 year-old daughter to the movie. Perhaps, it was the wrong choice. The animals die.

I had read the book a long time ago and I had forgotten what exactly happened. I just remember it was an amazing book, one which only comes around probably once a year. It was a story where at the end you almost believe the events happen. For an author to make a reader question reality and believe in a story that rationally, they know can't happen, it means the author is a genius.

So I knew the ship was going to sink. I warned my daughter on the car ride over there. I told her it was done on a computer. It's not real. "I'll hold my hands over your ears for that part. I'll cover your eyes." In the movie, everything went according to plan. It worked. We got through the boat scene and I thought it is smooth sailing from here on out. (No pun intended.) 
And then . . . the animals got in the lifeboat. A zebra and an orangutan. With a tiger. With a hyena. Oh man, I said to myself. I finally remembered what happened in the book. And then she let out a huge cry.

I took her outside to the hallway and tried to convince her the animals weren't real. "They wouldn't put a real tiger in the boat with a boy, a zebra, and an orangutan. It's all done on a computer." She wasn't buying it. Those were animals and they were killed. I told her we could go home. (Leaving the theater after spending over $20 dollars on 3D movie tickets was not great but I was ready to leave if this is what she wanted.) She said she wanted to see the rest of the movie. I told her we can leave at any point, just tell me.

The killing was over by the time we got back to our seats. The only other bad part (which made me cry, too) was during the rain storm when the tiger almost drown in the boat. I kept whispering to her, "The tiger isn't going to die. The tiger isn't going to die."

In the end, it was not a good movie to take her to. She learned a lot of good lessons but those animals  . . .  Olivia said, "You know who I liked the most and wanted to live? The tiger." She is exactly like me. Always, rooting for the animal. The human, sure, it would be nice if he survived too. But if not, life goes on.

They said this book couldn't be made into a movie. But the movie was amazing. Ang Lee did a wonderful job directing the movie. I loved the ending, the whole point of it became clear. With God and with life, sometimes we need to believe in the better story even if we are unsure whether or not it is true.