The film reveals both Lee’s strengths and weaknesses, the former evincing itself in the early, quite delightful scenes of the smart, warm and funny family and their highly pictorial lifestyle. The latter, unfortunately, comes into play with the film’s excessive length and a certain ponderousness, as with that oh-so-serious but hollow framing device of having the adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) relate the story to a wide-eyed Englishman (Rafe Spall, in the most thankless movie role of the year). Lee also doesn’t do much to lessen the more twee elements of the book, like those elaborate explanations of Pi’s name, not to mention that of the tiger, who is known as Richard Parker.