The Beach

with Leonardo Dicaprio, Robert Carlyle, Virginie Ledoyen, Tilda Swinton
Directed by Danny Boyle
Written by John Hodge
by Michael McCarthy

The fourth film from those three blokes we’ll probably always think of as the “Trainspotting trio” (the above-mentioned writer and director as well as producer Andrew Macdonald), The Beach is ultimately about the perfect place that some travelers are always searching for. The sort of travelers who never seem to find what they’re looking for, especially in their countries of origin, yet would swear is out there and they’ll know it when they find it. And so they wander from place to place, like drug addicts who’ll try every substance they come across in pursuit of the ultimate high. Even if it might kill them.

I read Alex Garland’s novel, which this is an adaptation of, shortly after it was released, when critics and literature junkies alike hailed it as the new Lord of the Flies. There were minor things I didn’t like about it, admittedly, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and consider it one of my favorites. It’ll take repeat viewings for me to make such a statement about the film, however, as my initial reaction was rather negative. In fact, I hurried to the nearest café and wrote a bitter review immediately after seeing it. The reason you’re not reading that review is that I wasn’t being fair, speaking too much as a fan of the book, and also because when I woke up the next day, I saw that there might be more great things about the film than things that are, well, less than great.

It begins with Leonardo DiCaprio’s American character, Richard, in Bangkok. He’s just arrived and he’s searching for something, though he’s not sure what it is. And like most tourists in search of something, he doesn’t want to be just another tourist. For this reason, he accepts the dare of a local and finds himself drinking a shot of snake’s blood. When he meets an excited stranger named Daffy at the hotel (played amusingly enough by Trainspotting‘s Robert “Begbie” Carlyle), he shares a joint with him and listens as he speaks about a marvelous, secret paradise – the beach. The next day, the stranger has killed himself, leaving Richard a map to this beach. He works up the nerve to ask a French couple to accompany him, and off they go. Upon arrival, they luckily escape armed pot farmers and hook up with a community of other tourists. The community’s leader, Sal (Tilda Swinton), explains that the pot farmers allow them to stay there, under the condition that they don’t tell anybody else about it, lest too many people show up and ruin things. Trouble is, Richard left a copy of the map for a couple of dudes he met on the way.

In the eye-candy department, there probably won’t be another film so impressive this year. The cinematography by Darius Khondji is amazing, while Boyle’s direction is as stylish and sharp as it was with Trainspotting. Plus, you have DiCaprio and French actress Virginie Ledoyen to drool over – and they give solid performances, as does the rest of the cast. More than just eye-candy, The Beach offers some food for thought about traveling to perfect places, among other things, and some very suspenseful moments. There are also some amusing dream sequences, as one would expect from the Trainspotting trio. The problem is, DiCaprio’s Richard is the only character that you really learn much about. He’s our narrator, and so that’s to be expected on some level, but the relationships between characters wasn’t explored as deeply as one would hope (instead, the filmmakers have added sex scenes that weren’t in the book), and that may be what ultimately keeps The Beach from being a cinematic masterpiece as satisfying as, well, Trainspotting. In fact, many of the relationships are glossed over as quickly as if any ol’ Hollywood director had helmed this.