'π' on π day! A paranoid mathematician searches for a key number that will unlock the universal patterns found in nature.
Darren Aronofsky's debut, for which he won 'Best Director' at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. Dramatically gripping and frighteningly smart, this Lynchian thriller does wonders with its unlikely subject and shoestring budget.
Numbers whiz Max Cohen (Sean Gullette) is stunted by psychological delusions of paranoia and debilitating headaches. He lives in a messy Chinatown apartment, where he tinkers with equations and his homemade, super-advanced computer. One day, however, Cohen encounters a mysterious number. Soon after reporting his discovery to his mentor (Mark Margolis) and to a religious friend (Ben Shenkman), he finds himself the target of ill-intentioned Wall Street agents bent on using the number for profit.
"Aronofsky's film caused a feeding frenzy at the Sundance Festival, where the fascination with higher maths usually extends only to projected box-office figures. But pi is anything but abstract - it's an intense black-and-white flash-fry of sound and image" - The Guardian
"Pi is a thriller. I am not very thrilled these days by whether the bad guys will get shot or the chase scene will end one way instead of another. You have to make a movie like that pretty skillfully before I care. But I am thrilled when a man risks his mind in the pursuit of a dangerous obsession." - Roger Ebert