The Beach

Director: Danny Boyle
Stars: Virginie Ledoyen, Robert Carlyle, Leonardo DiCaprio, Guillaume Canet, Tilda Swinton
Year:  2000 Running Time:  118 mins Rating: 3 out of 5 Certificate 15
The Beach 08

Exotic drama based on the bestseller by Alex Garland, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton and Virginie Ledoyen. An American backpacker in Thailand discovers an idyllic beach community on a secret island.

Review

American tourist Leonardo DiCaprio, halfway through the holiday from Hell in downtown Bangkok, inherits a map from crazed Robert Carlyle and finds an island paradise somewhere off the Thai coast. For some reason best known to himself and the plot, Leo makes a copy of the chart and gives it to two passing acquaintances. Taking a pair of French backpackers for company, he swims a mile from one island to another, jumps off a sky-high rock into a lagoon and thence to a happy hippie commune ruled over by Queen Tilda Swinton. She takes a shine to the newcomer, who has unfortunately fallen for the French girl backpacker (Virginie Ledoyen). Given the copy of the map, the flames of jealousy, the rifle-wielding marijuana farmers on the island and the sharks patrolling its shores, all this takes rather a long time to end in tears. Leophiles will love him with his shirt off, but, despite its fusion of familiar audience-pleasing elements, there's too little of moment going on for this film to grip our attention until it's more than half-way through.

Find a Movie

Enter your search query
Enhanced by Google