'The Beach': A new DiCaprio movie washes ashore

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'The Beach': A new DiCaprio movie washes ashore

Friday, February 11, 2000

By WILLIAM ARNOLD
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
MOVIE CRITIC

All those teenage fans who have been breathlessly awaiting Leonardo DiCaprio's follow-up to "Titanic" are likely to be disappointed by "The Beach." The Hollywood golden boy plays a liar, a coward and a weakling who, when the chips are down, is also a big crybaby.

Others might find the movie a bit more interesting. It doesn't really come off, but it's an admirably ambitious, and mostly very engaging, coming-of-age adventure that apes the spirit of Joseph Conrad (and Hollywood's most famous Conrad adaptation, "Apocalypse Now").

DiCaprio plays Richard, a young American backpacker alone in wicked Bangkok who is given a map by an older and seemingly crazed ex-pat (Robert Carlyle) that supposedly will lead him to a secret island off the southern coast of Thailand containing "a perfect beach" -- a veritable paradise on Earth.

In the company of a French couple (Virginie Ledoyen and Guillaume Canet), Richard impulsively follows the map to a tiny island just north of Ko Samui, where he finds a commune of young exiles who have founded a "beach resort for people who don't like beach resorts" -- and jealously guard the secret of the place.

The trio are accepted by the tribe of pleasure-seekers and, for a while, live out their wildest fantasy of paradise. But, gradually, a combination of sexual jealousy, paranoia, neighboring drug farmers and the harsh reality of life rears its head, and the hero finds himself descending into a heart of darkness.

Adapted from a novel by Alex Garland by the "Trainspotting" team (director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald, writer John Hodge), the film treats us to a gallery of gorgeous Thai scenery and half-naked young bodies, several scenes of nail-biting tension and two of Boyle's trademark comic-fantasy sequences.

For most of the film, its pseudo-Conradian edge, and its running homage to "Apocalypse Now" -- including a scene from that film, the famous whirling ceiling fan opening, and non-stop, hard-boiled voice-over narration (everything but the Doors on the soundtrack) -- is fun.

Even though his character engenders little sympathy or movie-star sparkle, DiCaprio gives a strong and relatively unmannered character performance that holds the movie together. He's simply one of the very best young actors of his generation, and he's not afraid to take chances and break the "rules" of movie stardom.

Somehow, however, the various themes the film explores -- the impossibility of "escape" anywhere on the planet, the frustrated thirst for high adventure in a generation that lives largely in cyberspace -- never come together with any emotional satisfaction or sense, and the film falls apart in the final act.

Throughout, one senses a war between the needs of artistic-minded filmmakers with a grim vision and the demands of a big-budget star vehicle. By the time the film works to its clumsy "author's message" and non sequitur happy ending, the Hollywood sensibility seems to have triumphed, and the movie rings terribly false.

MOVIE REVIEW

The Beach. Directed by Danny Boyle. Written by John Hodge. Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Virginie Ledoyen, Guillaume Canet, Tilda Swinton. 20th Century-Fox. Alderwood 7, Cinema 17, Crossroads, Everett Mall 1-3, Factoria, Galleria 11, Issaquah 9, Kent 6, Kirkland Parkplace, Lewis & Clark, Meridian 16, Mountlake 9, Neptune, Oak Tree, Redmond Town Center, Renton Village, SeaTac North, Woodinville 12. 118 minutes. Rated R for violence.
Grade: B-