The Beach is a 2000 drama film by the Trainspotting team of writer John Hodge, producer Andrew Macdonald and director Danny Boyle based on The Beach, a 1996 novel by Alex Garland. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton, Robert Carlyle, Virginie Ledoyen and Guillaume Canet.
Plot
Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio), a young American backpacking in Thailand, has come to Southeast Asia with the intention of experiencing something radically different from his familiar life. He hears of an island paradise commonly held to be urban legend. According to rumor the island is a secret community of travelers who have left behind their former lives. Richard initially dismisses the island's existence, but later meets Daffy (Robert Carlyle), who identifies himself as a former inhabitant and gives Richard a map. Shortly afterward, Daffy commits suicide.
Richard meets Françoise (Virginie Ledoyen) and her boyfriend, Étienne (Guillaume Canet), and convinces them to accompany him to the island. They travel from Bangkok to the shores of Koh Phangan, in the Gulf of Thailand where Richard befriends a pair of American surfers who mention the legend. He does not admit his knowledge but copies his map and slides it under their door.
To reach the island, Richard, Françoise and Étienne must hop between several adjacent islands. When they first arrive on the island, they come across an enormous marijuana plantation, guarded by local men armed with AK-47 assault rifles. They manage to evade detection and find the community of travelers. They are seen by Keaty (Patterson Joseph), who takes them to the beach community. They are interrogated by the island's leader Sal (Tilda Swinton) regarding their knowledge of the island but eventually accepted into the community.
One night, Richard and Françoise are walking down the beach, and she tells him that she regrets not being able to spend as much time with him as she likes, since she is in a relationship, though she likes him. They swim out into the ocean to look at a swarm of bioluminescent plankton where Françoise kisses Richard and the two proceed to have passionate sex on the beach. They decide not to tell anyone about their romance, but soon everyone on the island finds out, including Étienne who, although devastated, says he won't stand in their way if Françoise is happier with Richard.
At first, the island and its community seem to live up to their reputation. Richard swims out into the ocean to catch fish with a harpoon, and is attacked by a young mako shark, but he stabs it to death with a knife — which gains him much admiration. Events take a turn for the worse when Richard is chosen to accompany Sal to the mainland to acquire supplies where the two American surfers see Richard. Sal overhears their conversation about the copy of the map, and confronts Richard who admits his guilt. In exchange for Sal's silence and Richard's return to the island, the two engage in a sexual encounter.
When they return to the island, everything returns to normal, until the Swedes are attacked by a large shark. Sten dies and Christo is severely injured. The only options for Christo are to go to the mainland to get medical help or stay on the island and take his chances, however, Sal refuses to allow a doctor to come to the island. Christo chooses to stay, not wanting to go near the water after his encounter with the shark. Christo's condition worsens and the community becomes annoyed with it, so they take him out into the middle of the jungle to die. All of them seem fine with this decision, except for Étienne, who stays with him. Later, Sal observes that the American surfer friends of Richard are on the neighboring island and charges Richard with the task of watching them so he can obtain the map or destroy it. While he's waiting for the surfers to arrive, Françoise shows up, furious and heartbroken, saying that Sal has told everybody about her and Richard's sexual encounter. Richard can't cope with his task and retreats into the forest where he becomes temporarily insane, believing that he is communing with the long-dead Daffy. He evades the other islanders and sets lethal traps in an attempt to keep them at bay, at times hallucinating that he is a character in a video game.
Meanwhile, the surfers reach the island but are discovered and killed by the marijuana farmers. Richard returns to the community to convince Étienne and Françoise to leave the island, believing that all their lives are now in danger. Étienne refuses, not wanting to leave Christo, whose leg has become gangrenous. Richard ends up smothering him when the other two leave the tent. The farmers approach Sal, with whom they had an agreement; the travelers may continue to live on the island so long as it remains a secret. The head farmer gives Sal a pistol with which to shoot Richard. Sal's partner, Bugs, pins Richard against the main support of the structure and Sal pulls the trigger, but the chamber is empty. Nevertheless, when the rest of the community see the lengths that Sal is willing to go to for the sake of the community, they leave the island, however Sal stays behind.
The film ends with Richard returning to his former lifestyle of travel. While stopping by an internet cafe to check his e-mail, he receives a photograph from Françoise of the beach community with an animated handwritten inscription over the image: 'Parallel Universe. Love, Françoise'.
Cast
Production
Ewan McGregor was cast as the main character before leaving due to disputes with the director. It was speculated that Boyle was offered additional funding under the condition that DiCaprio be cast and his character made American.
Real-life drama unfurled on set one day when the cast and crew were involved in a boating accident during production. It was reported that the incident involved both Boyle and DiCaprio. Luckily, no one was injured.
The beach seen in the film is not the same as in real life. There is a gap between mountains on the actual beach on in Thailand. Special effects crew digitally added some of the surrounding mountains during the post-production phase. The actual beach was also transformed from its natural look. It is reported that crew members flattened the beach with a tractor, much to the locals' dismay. The Tsunami of 2004, however, has reshaped the beach to its natural look.
Boyle has been cited saying that the look of the jungle scenes in the film were inspired by the Rare/Nintendo Game Banjo-Kazooie.
The map in the film was illustrated by the author of the book version of The Beach, Alex Garland.
Special Edition DVD
The nine scenes, including an alternative ending which to a degree resembles the one in the novel, that were deleted from the movie, were later included in a Special Edition DVD release along with Danny Boyle's commentary on what might have been their purpose. There is also an alternate ending in where you see Sal committing suicide and everyone loading up on a boat from the raft.
Differences from the novel
Richard is British in the novel. He never sleeps with Françoise despite having feelings for her, which he thinks are reciprocated, saying that he considers Étienne a good guy and wouldn't want to do that to him. He also never sleeps with Sal, nor is it Sal who accompanies him to the mainland for supplies, but rather a character called Jed who doesn't appear in the film. The ending is different, with Richard and a handful of others attempting to escape from the now crumbling community.
In the epilogue, after their successful escape, they move into their respective lives—Richard losing touch with Étienne and Françoise—and yet Richard finds it hard to be totally freed of the effects of his experiences in that "parallel universe".
Controversy
Controversy arose during the making of the film due to 20th Century Fox's bulldozing and landscaping of the natural beach setting of Ko Phi Phi Lee to make it more "paradise-like". The production altered some sand dunes and cleared some coconut trees and grass to widen the beach. Fox set aside a fund to reconstruct and return the beach to its natural state, however lawsuits were filed by environmentalists who believed the damage to the ecosystem was permanent and restoration attempts had failed.[1]
The lawsuits dragged on for years. In 2006, Thailand's Supreme Court upheld an appeal court ruling that the filming had harmed the environment and ordered that damage assessments be made. Defendants in the case included 20th Century Fox and some Thai government officials.[2]
After the film premiered in Thailand in 2000, some Thai politicians were upset at the way Thailand was depicted in the film, and called for it to be banned. The depiction of the drug culture gave Thailand a bad image and having a statue of Buddha in a bar was cited as "blasphemous".[3]
Reception
The film was largely panned by critics and only has 19% rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes,[4] although it has a Metacritic score of 43/100.[5]
Most public audiences agree that the film began rather promisingly but included a very disappointing ending. Jeffrey Sanders of movie-page.com said "The beginning was great, the middle was good and the ending was …wretched." Movie rating sites tend to all agree with the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) giving it a score of 6.2 out of a possible 10. IMDb's user rating report breaks down votes and ratings of a particular film by gender and age. For "The Beach" ratings stayed generally in the high fives and low sixes of the rating scale with the highest ratings being among males under 17, with a score of 7 out of 10.
Critics from Entertainment Weekly to CNN.com also agreed that the film was less than par, especially when compared to the book on which it was based. Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum gave the film a C+ saying that "As a book, The Beach offers the option of diving deep. As a movie, it sticks too close to the shoreline."
DiCaprio's fame post-Titanic seemed to help the success of this film, coming out less than two years after the James Cameron blockbuster. CNN's Paul Clinton said "Leonardo DiCaprio's main fan base of screaming adolescent girls won't be disappointed with "The Beach." The majority of the film displays the titanic-size young heartthrob sans his shirt in this story about the pseudo-angst and alienation of a young man from the United States escaping civilization and his computer-obsessed generation." Yet, he agrees with most others that "The Beach" was "nothing to write home about."
The budget of the film was $50 million. The US box office was $39 million and the worldwide total was just over $144 million.[6]
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for the film features "8 Ball" by Underworld, as well as tracks by Orbital, Moby, Blur, New Order, Faithless, Leftfield, and others. The song, "Touched" by VAST was included in the movie, but omitted from the soundtrack. The All Saints song "Pure Shores" topped the UK Singles Chart. The soundtrack was co-produced by Pete Tong.
The film score was composed by Angelo Badalamenti, and a separate album containing selections of his score was released as well.
Track listing
- "Snakeblood" (composed by Neil Barnes and Paul Daley; performed by Leftfield) – 5:39
- "Pure Shores" (composed by William Orbit and Shaznay Lewis; performed by All Saints) – 4:24
- "Porcelain" (composed and performed by Moby) – 3:58
- "Voices" (composed by Stephen Spencer, Paul Geoffrey Spencer & Scott Rosser; performed by Dario G featuring Vanessa Quinones) – 5:19
- "8 Ball" (composed by Rick Smith and Karl Hyde; performed by Underworld) – 8:51
- "Spinning Away" (composed by Brian Eno and John Cale; performed by Sugar Ray) – 4:24
- "Return of Django" (composed by Lee "Scratch" Perry; performed by the Asian Dub Foundation featuring Harry Beckett and Simon de Souza) – 4:17
- "On Your Own (Crouch End Broadway Mix)" (composed and performed by Blur) – 3:32
- "Yéké Yéké (Hardfloor Edit)" (composed and performed by Mory Kante; remix by Hardfloor) – 3:55
- "Woozy" (composed and performed by Faithless) – 7:53
- "Richard, It's Business As Usual" (composed and performed by Barry Adamson) – 4:17
- "Brutal" (composed and performed by New Order) – 4:49
- "Lonely Soul" (composed by Richard Ashcroft, Wil Malone & J. Davis; performed by UNKLE featuring Richard Ashcroft) – 8:53
- "Beached" (composed by Angelo Badalamenti; performed by Orbital and Angelo Badalamenti) – 6:45
See also
References
- ^ Vidal, John. October 29, 1999. DiCaprio film-makers face storm over paradise lost, The Guardian, retrieved via ThaiStudents.com on December 3, 2006.
- ^ The Nation, December 1, 2006. Filming 'damaged beach' (retrieved on December 3, 2006).
- ^ BBC, 9 March, 2000. Thai MPs call for Beach ban (retrieved on December 3, 2000).
- ^ "The Beach". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/beach/. Retrieved 2008-08-27.
- ^ "Beach, The". MetaCritic. http://www.metacritic.com/video/titles/beach. Retrieved 2008-08-27.
- ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=beachthe.htm
External links
