Netflix pick for 6/17/13 – ‘Pi’

Not the “Life of Pi,” but just “Pi” itself, this is Darren Aronofsky’s first movie, and boy is it a doozy of a debut. Equal parts student art film, surrealist horror and character drama, “Pi” is a movie about a mathematician seeking a numerical answer to the equation that is existence, and this doth drive him just a little mad.

Despite being Aronofsky’s first film, “Pi” has several Aronofsky hallmarks, including gimmicky photography, a protagonist succumbing to his obsessions, a Clint Mansell composed soundtrack, and of course, Mark Margolis in a small yet important supporting role. This is thriller without any real chase scenes or guns or any typical stuff like that – instead it is a thriller about a man who continues further and further down the rabbit hole, coming across possible mathematical discoveries that would be likely to drive even the average person over the brink of sanity and into the chasm of insanity, let alone our already somewhat damaged and introverted “hero” of the movie.

This movie is worth checking out right here on the Netflix Instant, especially if you’ve already seen “The Wrestler” and “Black Swan” and would like to know where this dynamic and unqiue filmmaker has come from and where he might intend to go.