Leonardo DiCaprio, Virginie Ledoyen, Guillame
Canet, Tilda Swinton, and Robert Carlyle
In a post-Titanic world, it's virtually impossible
to set apart the recent film THE BEACH from its flaxen-haired
superstar lead, Mr. DiCaprio. At this moment in movie history,
Leo is tripping the cultural zeitgeist, and his stardom nearly
overpowers everything he touches. Watching THE BEACH is
an unsettling experience, if for no other reason than its complete
pimping of DiCaprio's star power. Imagine the impossibility of
RISKY BUSINESS without Tom Cruise, and one might get a sense of
THE BEACH's co-option of The Boy Who Was Jack Dawson.
For the true disappointment in THE BEACH isn't
DiCaprio, who is more than decent as Richard, a young, rich, bored
American looking for adventure in Thailand. No, the dismaying
disaster in the film is the irresponsibility of its director,
Danny Boyle, the man who rose to fame with the British import
TRAINSPOTTING. Never has a director risen to such heights, only
to fall so badly: both THE BEACH and the film that Boyle
preceded it with, A LIFE LESS ORDINARY, are travel postcards
masquerading as cinema. In this latest film, he squanders interesting
source material, a credible cast (Orlando herself, Tilda Swinton,
no less!), and a luscious natural setting. It's the kind of film
that makes you shake your head and wonder why someone didn't stop
this mess. (Of course, Leomania is the answer, right?)
The story is preposterous, filled with inconsistencies
and characters that have no center or focus. Richard meets Daffy,
an odd Scotsman played by the terrific actor Robert Carlyle, in
(are you ready?) THE WEIRD WINDOW BETWEEN THEIR ROOMS NEAR THE
CEILING OF THEIR HOTEL. There Daffy, in less than sixty seconds,
bonds with the young disaffected Yank over small talk and a cigarette.
The next morning, Daffy has committed suicide and left
a map (for no explainable reason) for Richard. The map leads to
an island, a secret island that is supposedly a paradise of wild
marijuana plants and the titular beach. In an unbelievable coincidence,
Richard runs into some fellow American tourists, whose sole purpose
seems to be to tell Richard of a rumored paradise island...JUST
AS HE'S READING THE MAP. He decides to go to the island, inviting
a sexy French girl (Virginie Ledoyen) and her boyfriend Etienne
(Guillame Canet) to go with him. THEY DROP EVERYTHING AND IMMEDIATELY
GO WITH LEO...WHY, I DON'T KNOW. Just as they're about to leave,
Leo inexplicably leaves a copy of the map for the friendly tourists,
practically telegraphing to the audience "Boy, will this
come back to haunt us later!"
So they get to the island (surprise), and meet up with
a postmodern hippie commune run by Sal (TIlda Swinton), a half-hip,
half-severe-elementary-school-teacher who encourages personal
freedom while running the commune quite authoritatively. The commune
itself is unbelievable: everyone is blond and beautiful, with
perfectly tanned Swedish surfing boys and blonde goddesses. It's
Lord Of The Flies As Portrayed By The Cast Of Baywatch. Oh, there's
one black man, the fun-yet-wise man who shows Richard the ropes...but
like everyone else, he's not having any sex with the blonde babes.
In fact, no one on the island except Richard seems to be having
sex (Leo -- surprise! -- hooks up with the French girl). For an
isolated community of hippies, there's an alarming amount of decorum,
including bathing suits when they're swimming(!) Where did they
get these clothes, the local DKNY?
The ending, without giving it away, is par for the
course, a completely unbelievable 'happy' ending for what is essentially
a dark film. Prior to TITANIC, DiCaprio had built a small niche
for himself out of darkly-drawn outsiders (THE BASKETBALL DIARIES,
ROMEO AND JULIET); THE BEACH fits much easier into that
grouping than into the Leomania Era (TITANIC, THE MAN IN THE IRON
MASK). Perhaps the film was an attempt to kill the memories of
Jack Dawson forever. Still, one wishes he had picked better material
for such an effort.
As a tourism advertisement, however, THE BEACH
is VERY successful. The tropical setting is one of the most lush
spectacles this reviewer has ever seen in a film. Indeed, when
the movie hits its slow, meandering parts, it's easy to drift
off into the lush green forests or the crystal blue water. If
only the boys behind this disaster had made a TraveLogue instead
of a film. At least there, THE BEACH could have made some
logical sense, and highlighted its best feature in the process.
As it is, it's a preposterous mess that serves no one...not Leo,
not Richard, and not the audience.
