Review of The Beach (2000) by Silabhakta L — 19 May 2010

"The Beach" is a movie that tries so hard to be creative and smart. No, there's no but. It just tries so hard to be creative and smart. It's about an American tourist who finds a 'paradise' that has a hidden community and all that. He decides to stay there, for it is, paradise.

The movie is an adaption of a novel of the same name written by Alex Garland. I have not yet read the book so I'm in no position to compare the two in any way. Critics say that it doesn't live up to the book, but I can't comment on that.

The film opens with Richard (Leornado DiCaprio) as an American backpacker in Bangkok narrating about, change or something. Okay, and, he meets fellow traveler Daffy (Robert Carlyle) who is crazy and tells him of a lost paradise. It's hard to find, but well-worth the effort. He gives Richard a map, and kills himself the next day.

Well, Richard decides to find this paradise and recruits a French couple to join him. He has a love interest towards the girl Françoise (Virginie Ledoyen). But she's with Etienne (Guillaume Canet). A love triangle is bound to emerge right? Nope, Etienne would rather Françoise be with Richard if she's happy that way. So that is that. The first 2/3 of the movie is filled with a lifeless love between Richard and Françoise.

The three do find the island by the way. There's a self-constructed, multi-racial community. It's lead by Sal (Tilda Swinton). They don't get there without struggle though. There's a 2km swim, dodging marijuana gunmen, jumping off a waterfall. It's a movie with all of that.

Most of the scenes seem just like time-fillers to get to the point of a movie with no point. There's Richard killing a shark, fishing, interacting with other paper-thin characters. You lose interest with everything so fast.

But wait! There are scenes that are, I think, meant to provoke. Richard leaps down the the dark end of paradise. He becomes depressed and has nightmares of talking with Daffy. It's never even close clear why this happens. You would actually think that Richard has no motivation and is mentally ill if you didn't know better. The problem is, we know that the movie is supposed to mean something and evoke, but it simply doesn't. There's also one time where he pictures himself in a video game. Is this supposed to be a comic relief or what? Whatever it is, it's goofy and plain unnecessary.

I think what screenwriter John Hodge and director Danny Boyle is trying to express is the change happening inside Richard. The American tourist that adapts and trains himself to jungle life. But his 'revolution' towards the end of the film is plain pointless and meandering. I don't know if Danny Boyle knew this, but he needed excessive violence and foul-language to insist this 'compulsory' ending.

I also think that the movie is just a bunch of sequences that pile onto one another discussing life on a self-contained community. It never addresses the movie as, well, a movie. There's one interesting development where one of the commune guys gets bitten by a shark. He's filled with agonizing pain but Sal the leader won't let him reveal the island. She cares more of the island then the people. This suggests a darker, more meaningful movie, but it still doesn't go anywhere.

DiCaprio delivers a weird performance. He grew, I think, from this movie. His next was "Catch Me If You Can" and his first Scorsese collaboration "Gangs Of New York." You could draw parallels with his acting in his most recent movie "Shutter Island," except that in this movie, he disappointed. In a better film though, Richard would be this undeserving twit. The character would develop as a narcissistic and arrogant guy. But I guess it would be stupid to put DiCaprio's post-"Titanic" stardom there.

All-in-all, "The Beach" is a meaningless movie. I kept thinking while watching, the TV series "Lost" is much, much better than this. Though I think it would be disrespectful to the latter to compare the two. Confusing violence is all the movie seems to think about. Never mind what you call a coherent plot. All "The Beach" does is confuse you more and more as the story goes on.

1½ out of 4 stars.