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A point of view reinforced by Danny Boyle's adaptation of the Alex Garland book, The Beach. Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a young, rough guide to the world kind of guy, intent on finding new experiences - and himself - on a no-budget trip to Thailand. There he is rudely awakened by Daffy (Robert Carlyle, wearing his customary psycho trousers), who lets him in on a secret: somewhere off the coast of Thailand there exists an island; a paradise on earth containing the best beach in the world (and, incidentally, fields full of marijuana). When Daffy offs the mortal coil, he leaves Richard a map to the island - young Dick's interest is suitably piqued that he sets off to find it, inviting a young French couple, Etienne and Francoise (Guillame Canet and Virginie Ledoyen) to accompany him. Soon the merry trio set foot on the island, and find it to be populated by two camps of inhabitants: drug-farming, uzi-toting locals; and a hippy-drippy, tree-hugging commune led by the tediously New Age Sal (Tilda Swinton). Paradise found or a recipe for disaster? What do you think? Danny Boyle is guilty of overdosing his films with every hip and druggy reference and device he can get his hands on, and The Beach is no exception. Like a lonely teenager from the suburbs dressing up in baggy clothes and speaking in Compton gangsta slang, Boyle incessantly tries too hard to be "down with the kids", in a boring Ali G kind of way. Video games, a desperately trying to be credible soundtrack (All Saints? I ask you...), alternative lifestyle guitar-strumming singalong nonsense and enough drugs to make Hunter S Thompson sick: all these add up to a package that just embarrasses. The Beach isn't all bad. It's lovely to look at, the locations being exploited fully in long panaromic zoom-out shots that must have made the Thailand tourist board happy. Some of the performances are good too, DiCaprio only grating when he descends into Lord Of The Flies meets Apocalypse Now insanity. Carlyle is amusing too, bellowing away like a nutter in the dodgy part of town on a Friday night. However, Ledoyen is overhyped, Swinton makes you want to punch her repeatedly, and the raggle-taggle bunch of bypass-protesting druggies had me rooting for the guys with the uzis. I've not read the book, but I have it on good authority it is better, exploring the themes of what constitutes paradise, and using the island and the beach as allegories for society and the human condition. The movie however stamps all over this regardless in its attempt to be hip and happening, and results in an annoying and unenjoyable piece that you would either have to be totally blissed-out or Danny Boyle's mother to love. As I am neither, I hated it. Back to Screen Scene |
Never trust a hippy.