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The Beach
2000
The desire to find something real - to connect with something or someone - is what drives Richard, a young American backpacker who arrives in Thailand with adventure on his mind. Travel, he asserts, is the search for experience, the quest for something different. At a cheap hotel in Bangkok, Richard meets a French couple, .. Read more
| Starring | Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton, Virginie Ledoyen, Guillaume Canet |
|---|---|
| Director | Danny Boyle |
| Genres | Drama |
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The Beach
The desire to find something real - to connect with something or someone - is what drives Richard, a young American backpacker who arrives in Thailand with adventure on his mind. Travel, he asserts, is the search for experience, the quest for something different. At a cheap hotel in Bangkok, Richard meets a French couple, Etienne and Francoise. He also encounters Daffy, an older traveler ravaged by years of sun and drugs. Rambling and paranoid, Daffy tells Richard the improbable tale of a secret island, a paradise on earth: the perfect beach, unsullied by tourists. The next day, Richard finds a piece of paper pinned to his door. It is a hand-drawn map of the island described by Daffy. This, Richard realizes, may be the "something different" he has been looking for. Richard persuades Francoise and Etienne to join him and they set off on a journey, following Daffy's map. Reaching their destination, they find a small community of travelers like themselves, living in secret. They are welcomed into the group, and the island paradise becomes their home, sapping them of all will to return to the world they knew before. Yet beneath the surface, this heaven on earth is less than perfect.
| Starring | Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton, Virginie Ledoyen, Guillaume Canet, Robert Carlyle, Daniel York |
|---|---|
| Director | Danny Boyle |
| Studio | 20TH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 55 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Hearing-impaired | English |
| Subtitles | DVD: Czech, Danish, English, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish |
| Released | DVD: 27 Dec 2000 Production year: 2000 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (6)
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This journey down the hippy trail from the Trainspotting team takes a tour round the mind of Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio), a young backpacker seeking adventure in Thailand, who gets more than he bargained for when drug-crazed madman Daffy (Robert Carlyle) tells him the location of a secret beach. Controversial during its production, the movie garnered headlines in the press for allegedly causing environmental damage to Phi Phi island, attention that did much to increase its public awareness. John Hodge's clever, witty script, based on Alex Garland's bestselling novel, keeps the narrative firmly on track, leaving director Danny Boyle ample room to luxuriate in the region's visual delights. With DiCaprio giving his most mature, multilayered performance to date, and French actress Virginie Ledoyen a great find as the love interest, The Beach achieves the near impossible by evoking in us the same feelings of longing and regret experienced by the film's characters.
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"... [DiCaprio] goes APOCALYPSE NOW Brando, launching the most inspired sequence of this ambling meditation on paradise and innocence lost..."
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Most helpful member's review
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16 out of 17 people found this review helpful
What have you done to a Masterpiece story?
Danny Boyle and Hollywood have a lot to answer for after butchering Alex Garland’s modern classic!
First off DiCaprio hams up the character of Richard. This I don’t understand. He is great in so many films! "Basket Ball Diaries", "What’s eating Gilbert grape", "Gangs of New York" and the list goes on. I think it was just awful casting, as the whole point of the Richard's character was that he was a geek! Spotty, ginger geek! That had more chance of loosing his eyesight from shaking hands with the governor of love than pulling the “love interest” in the story. But give a story to Hollywood and watch them disfigure it almost as much as the moviemakers did to the beach in Thailand to make the film!
It’s a shame, because there is so much potential there but it all fails to be delivered in this popcorn “oh isn’t Leo cute with his top off” trash!
There is one redeeming feature in that Robert Carlyle puts in a sterling performance as Daffy. One to avoid if you have read the book or if you actually like good films! -
Most recent members' review
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4 out of 6 people found this review helpful
trouble in paradise
Okay, i'm going to review this in two parts. Part one is everything up to around 1hr 20mins.
This film is the ultimate fantasy trip. It's not very often the ambition, drive and possibilities of the human spirit are represented so realistically and enjoyably. Leonardo lives the life that most optimists/idealists ALMOST dare to live on numerous occassions. He goes away, leaving everyone he knows behind; to case the promised land.
On arriving in Thailand, he finds a new mission; a secret Island. This is pure fantasy and you are whisked off into a wonderful journey which Danny Boyle takes us on smoothly.
The reason we watch films is from escapism, and this film does it perfectly.
Now part 2. everything after 1hr 20min.
I'm not sure who to blame, so i'll blame Danny Boyle. Visually, he's a brilliant director but his storytelling leaves a lot to be desired. Think of '28 days later', that was a perfect film until about 3/4 through when everything gets silly. Here in The Beach; the story is masterful and played/directed with perfection.. until that 1hr 20min point.. it's as if Boyle feels he isn't being daring enough, or that the writers wanted some hollywood conflict to keep things rolling. Hence we get a predictable and seemingly pointless conflict between Di Caprio and his fellow friends on the Island, Di Caprio has given the secret away.. and then everything goes a little mad, and Di Caprio loses his mind before getting it back in time for a nice lovely finish. Bleh, and they were doing so well.
What they should have realised, is the film was already daring and original enough. It had taken us viewers on an amazing journey into the unknown, into a place we all dream of finding, i.e. a heaven on earth. This journey is perfect, but the conflict seems less natural than when Vampires turned up in 'From Dusk Till Dawn'
Overall; yes. I enjoyed it. I recommend renting it, but for me it lost it's way toward the end.
dan
dj152@aol.com -
News and features
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McGregor ready to end feud with Boyle
- 27 May 2009
Ewan Mcgregor has reached out to end his long rift with director Danny Boyle - nearly a decade after the Oscar winner dropped him from a movie. The pair formed a close friendship after collaborating on 1996 movie Trainspotting, and Boyle promised McGregor the lead role in 2000 blockbuster The Beach. But studio bosses pressured him to cast a more famous name and the role went to Leonardo DiCaprio instead. Speaking back in 2005, McGregor accused Boyle of "betraying" him, telling Playboy magazine, Read more
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