Fails the Bechdel test

Life of Pi

Name: Life of Pi
Released: 2012

2012. Directed by Ang Lee, written by Yann Martel and David Magee.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

1 / 3

Fails

Yes 1. At least two women
3 women characters. 2 of them speak.
No 2. Who talk to each other
Our parser found no scene where two women talk to each other.
No 3. About something besides a man
Not reached: the film fails an earlier rule.

Second opinion

Agree bechdeltest.com readers give it 1 out of 3.

The film

In Canada, a writer visits the Indian storyteller Pi Patel and asks him to tell his life story. Pi tells the story of his childhood in Pondicherry, India, and the origin of his nickname. One day, his father, a zoo owner, explains that the municipality is no longer supporting the zoo and he has hence decided to move to Canada, where the animals the family owns would also be sold. They board on a Japanese cargo ship with the animals and out of the blue, there is a storm, followed by a shipwrecking. Pi survives in a lifeboat with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and a male Bengal tiger nicknamed Richard Parker. They are adrift in the Pacific Ocean, with aggressive hyena and Richard Parker getting hungry. Pi needs to find a way to survive.

Released: 21 Nov 2012
Genres: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
Rated: PG
IMDb: 7.9 / 10
Metascore: 79 / 100
Awards: Won 4 Oscars. 81 wins & 134 nominations total
Elsewhere: View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

Women
Men
Not in the cast list
Bigger name, more lines

Pi 119 lines, man
Adult Pi 87 lines, man
Writer 38 lines, man
Father 26 lines, man
Mother 14 lines, woman
Ravi 10 lines, man
Young Pi 10 lines, man
French Cook 9 lines, man
Okamoto 9 lines
Anandi 4 lines, woman

Full cast, 41 people

Suraj Sharma as Pi Patel
Irrfan Khan as Adult Pi Patel
Ayush Tandon as Pi Patel (11-12 Years)
Gautam Belur as Pi Patel (5 Years)
Adil Hussain as Santosh Patel
Tabu as Gita Patel
Ayaan Khan as Ravi Patel (7 Years)
Mohd Abbas Khaleeli as Ravi Patel (13-14 Years)
Vibish Sivakumar as Ravi Patel (18-19 Years)
Rafe Spall as Writer
Gérard Depardieu as Cook
James Saito as Older Insurance Investigator
Jun Naito as Younger Insurance Investigator
Andrea Di Stefano as Priest
Shravanthi Sainath as Anandi
Elie Alouf as Mamaji
T.M. Karthik as Science Teacher
Amarendran Ramanan as Indian History Teacher
Hari Mina Bala as Librarian
Edison Wang as Buddhist Sailor
Ko I-chen as Tsimtsum Captain
Jag Huang as Sailor
Ravi Natesan as Selvam
Adyant Balaji as Bully
Chirag Agarwal as Bully
Ahan André Kamath as Bully
Om Kamath as Bully
Srilekh Katta as Bully
Swati Van Rijswijk as Anandi's Friend #1
M. Keerthana as Anandi's Friend #2
Indumohan Poornima as Dancer
Josephine Nithya B. as Dancer
Samyuktha S. as Dancer
A. Deiva Sundari as Dancer
G. Vasantakumary as Dancer
A. Vithya as Dancer
Mythili Prakash as Pi's Wife
Raj Patel as Pi's Son
Hadiqa Hamid as Pi's Daughter
Iswar Srikumar as Muslim Worshipper
Padmini Priyadarshini as Dance Master

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 3 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 7% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 113

Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.

Show the numbers

Scenes	Women's lines	Men's lines
1 to 3	0	4
4 to 6	0	16
7 to 9	0	6
10 to 12	0	15
13 to 15	0	5
16 to 18	0	11
19 to 21	0	5
22 to 24	1	10
25 to 27	3	12
28 to 30	0	5
31 to 33	0	3
34 to 36	0	14
37 to 39	4	19
40 to 42	5	7
43 to 45	2	12
46 to 48	5	14
49 to 51	0	13
52 to 54	0	6
55 to 57	0	18
58 to 60	0	1
61 to 63	0	6
64 to 66	0	6
67 to 69	0	2
70 to 72	0	12
73 to 75	0	3
76 to 78	0	5
79 to 81	0	6
82 to 84	0	7
85 to 87	0	2
88 to 90	0	4
91 to 93	0	8
94 to 96	0	4
97 to 99	0	2
100 to 102	0	0
103 to 105	0	9
106 to 108	0	6
109 to 111	0	23
112 to 113	0	18

The evidence

Straight from the script
Counted from the script and the credits

Tap an exhibit to open it.

Exhibit A: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 6 are women's.

20 lines from women, 319 from men.

Women
Men

Exhibit B: who's in it

3 women and 18 men in the cast. 2 women and 11 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

Women
Men

Exhibit C: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 79 of 365. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 190 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

First line by a woman
Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 4% of the words (220), men 96% (4,982). Women have 6% of the lines, so their lines run shorter than men's.

Exhibit D: the test the other way

Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.

Conversations between two named characters

Two women

Two men

Exhibit E: behind the camera

2 of the 22 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 16% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by: Ang Lee (man)
Written by: David Magee (man)
From the novel by: Yann Martel (man)
Produced by: Gil Netter (man), David Womark (man), Ang Lee (man), David Lee (man)
Shot by: Claudio Miranda (man)
Edited by: Tim Squyres (man)
Music by: Mychael Danna (man)
Production design by: David Gropman (man), Marcelo Pont Vergés (man)
Costumes by: Arjun Bhasin (man)
Cast by: Avy Kaufman (woman), Surjo Deb (gender not listed), Zachary Luke Kislevitz (gender not listed), Lee Hsiu-luan (gender not listed), Khan Lee (gender not listed), Chaitali Patel (gender not listed) and 3 more