I recently took the chance to sit and watch the highly-rated, award-winning film, Life of Pi. In fact, I watched it twice. There are some movies that take a second look to truly understand the meaning and point that is trying to be made. This was certainly one of them.
What interested me the most about this movie (aside from the fact that it sounded like a very exciting epic story) was that I heard it dealt primarily with the concept of God. Being a very culturally influential film, I figured that it would be good for a minister to understand what message about God is being thickly spread across America.
So the first time I watched it, I saw the storyline as thrilling and spectacular. When I got to the end and tried to sort out the meaning of it (the main character lightly explaining his beliefs on God), I thought, “Hmm, this is a little confusing, but it seems that he is trying to convey that life is better with God in it. Well that’s good.” So I decided to watch a second time, paying attention to the most important parts so that I could get the best understanding of what was being said. And this time it became very clear to me.
The ultimate point that Life of Pi attempts to make concerning God is this: the ultimate reason that people should believe in God is that it gives your life a kind of hope to an afterlife and positive days throughout your life. And for this reason, although I enjoyed the story, I do not endorse and in fact promote that you avoid this movie.
I completely disagree with this form of philosophy. You do not serve God because it makes your life better, because it gives you hope, or because you will live your life happier. Although theses are all great things, they are only icing on a greater cake. The fact that He is God, He is Sovereign King, and He is real is plenty enough to offer up your all to Him. It is my opinion that whoever made this movie relies more on philosophy than they do their relationship with God. Yes, logic is important. But what is more important is your experience with God. A lifetime of study, research, and writing to prove that God is real might help us a whole lot, but one Pentecostal experience with God is all any person on this planet will need to realize that God is very much alive and at work in this world.
Ryan LaRue 
I think you missed a part of the central idea in the film. In times of extreme struggle and doubt, people need a story to believe in to remain sane and keep fighting, and the story need not be factual and logical – it only needs to be one of your choosing and preference. The character Pi’s faith journey reflects the process of maturing from a child’s view of God, one where God is present and proactively involved in events, to a more mature view where God loves us enough to not violate free will, and therefore allow terrible things to happen without intervening.
There are clues all throughout the film to indicate Pi isn’t necessarily even the character’s real name. The different stories behind his naming are all fantastic, and after all, the calculation of the numerical digits of Pi is an infinite mathematical process. It never ends. The entire film is about the impossibility of understanding concretely that which is infinite.
Pi knew that one sort of truth, the factual version of his survival story demanded by the insurers, was the one where the cook reaches the lifeboat, kills his mother, and where he must kill the cook to save his own life. Pi loses his family to tragedy, and he has to become a killer himself to continue living. Like Jonah inside the fish, and Jesus in the wilderness, Pi must face a complete crisis of faith to find a deeper truth than fact, to save himself from suicidal despair and being overwhelmed by survivor’s guilt. That’s what causes all the magic and beauty to emerge, from enormous loss, guilt, sadness. It’s the lesson of transformative suffering. By losing everything, he gains freedom, wisdom and life.
It’s an extremely important lesson, one that few films have even attempted to illustrate. Because it’s made with such sensitivity and care, I can’t recommend the film enough, especially to believers.
Oh yes, people do need something to believe in when in times of extreme struggle. But we cannot believe in God solely for the fact that he helps us in those times. That would be quite selfish.
When “older” Pi makes the statement, “And so it is with God,” he is expressing his belief that believing in God sounds like a better story, as well. That is how he made his effort to prove God to the writer. And his story is tremendous, but that is not how one should prove God to someone. God IS the better story. But He is also the TRUE story. The ONLY story. And He should have witnesses who refer to Him as truth, not just a benefit to humanity.