"Life of Pie" was a sleeper at the box office but was lauded for its visual effects. Yann Martel's ponderous adventure novel got the big-screen treatment by director Ang Lee. The coming-of-age story surrounds the son of a zookeeper who survives a shipwreck by stowing away on a lifeboat with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and a Bengal tiger by the name of Richard Parker.