The Beach (2000)

Directed by Danny Boyle. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Virginie Ledoyen, Tilda Swinton, Guillaume Canet, Paterson Joseph, Robert Carlyle, Lars Arentz-Hansen, Peter Youngblood Hills, Jerry Swindall, Daniel Caltagirone, Victoria Smurfit. [R]

DiCaprio plays an aimless American looking for adventure in an aimless movie without much adventure (at least, not much adventure that won’t remind viewers of much better and more exciting adventures). He’s in Bangkok when he’s given a map to a beautiful secluded beach, meets a French couple (Ledoyen, Canet), and invites them along to discover a slice of paradise…but, of course, the blissful times cannot last, not with the sharks in the water, the heavily-armed cannabis farmers, and the commune of fellow travelers led by Machiavellian dictator Swinton. More a collection of barely-credible incidents than a consistent or meaningful story; the film seems primed to deliver a moral lesson like a hammer upon its narcissistic, off-putting “hero,” but never gets around to it, and after the tacked-on upbeat denouement, there’s no sense that he’s been changed at all by the experience. Ledoyen makes for a vacant love interest, a mere prop with a pretty face to give DiCaprio something to obsess over until she “becomes his,” and then go all-but-forgotten when things start spiraling out of control. During that spiral in the back half, paranoia runs astray with too many aggressive, stylized hallucinations/fantasies, including a temporary transition into retro-video-game visuals(!), but to what purpose or gain? The scenery and soundtrack are the only things in this confused movie that could fairly be described as “idyllic.” Script by John Hodge, based on the first novel from future-filmmaker Alex Garland.

42/100