Beach, The

The Beach is a peculiar film. It was based on a highly acclaimed novel of the same name by Alex Garland (which haven’t read) but there is nothing in its screen transposition which indicates what was so attractive in the source material for director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald, and screenwriter John Hodge, the team that brought us Shallow Grave (1994), Trainspotting (1996) and A Life Less Ordinary (1997). At least part of the problem, Robbie Carlyle notwithstanding, might be the stretch from those relatively small-scale, quirkier films to this much glossier, mainstream effort with a post-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead. Whilst DiCaprio as always gives a committed performance, overall the film fails to convince.

Di Caprio plays Richard, a young American backpacker looking for adventure in South-East Asia. While in Bangkok, he meets a nutter (Robert Carlyle) who gives him an X-marks-the-spot type map indicating the whereabouts of an idyllic island and then kills himself.  Richard teams up with couple of Frenchies (Virginie Ledoyen and Guillaume Cantet) and they head off to find the island. When they do it is beautiful but is it also occupied by a commune of similar backpackers headed up by Sal (Tilda Swinton) who runs the community on the basis of strict regulations.

The film appears to be a kind of updating of Lord Of The Flies or an allegory of the 60s hippie back-to-nature movement. It starts off and for much of its running time seems to be a fairly straight-forward and not particularly interesting young persons’ adventure-romance. Then in its latter stages it permutes into something darker (no doubt why Angelo Badalamenti was called in to provide the score) which seems to identify with Apocalypse Now (1979) and Captain Willard in particular (when Richard initially arrives in Bangkok we see a clip from the film). Richard for no apparent reason looses his marbles, starts identifying with Carlyle’s Daffy and goes feral eating caterpillars and staring bug-eyed at the camera. Meanwhile everything in the commune is turning sour after a shark attack. Then after an unfortunate encounter with some local dope growers Richard suddenly reverts to being Mr Normal again, confronts the power-mad Sal and that’s it for Paradise. Which might be said to be the film’s message but its not one that is going to impress many people. 

FYI: Given the human folly portrayed it is ironic that the film gained ill-repute after crew members bulldozed parts of the real Thai island of Phi Phi Le in order to create a idyll for the silver screen.

 

Want something different?