A real backpackers POV...

Rating: 5/10 (8 February 2020)

Alex Garlands book was first published in 1995, the same year I set out with my future husband on a 2 year round the world backpacking trip, which was a profound & not altogether pleasent expierence. I got ameobic dysentry in Kathmandu, slipped & smashed my head open on a wet toilet floor in Bombay (now Mumbi) & on a bus journey, had a head on collision with a 10 ton truck on the side of a mountain near the Tibetan border, where I literally saw the words "Game Over" pop up in my eyes! But I also learned that backpackers of my era & the time frame of the Beach (1990's) were not very nice people.. This (by accident or by design) certainly comes across in The Beach!
The characters in the Beach (in particular Richard) are the most obnoxious, self centered, ego driven bunch of oddballs ever to grace any film. However Tilda Swinton (a real life raving Marxist but an incredibly talented actress) as creepily unhinged leader Sal, gives an amazing performance, making this movie worth a watch. Di Caprio, on the other hand, is wooden, & very unrelatable as Richard. His occasional over acting is also irritating. The basic screenplay is equally unconvincing (I have seen it done it & bought the t shirt) as backpackers would never congregate with other backpackers in a secret commune. The reason is that each backpacker of my time liked to think their own expierence is unique, special, & never been done before. Real backpackers are "travel snobs" who are loath to admit that they cannot live without their western creature comforts, which is only breifly explored in the Beach. Backpackers will congregate in places where those western creature comforts are catered for, like Kho San Road in Bangkok. Their food is chips (fries) burgers & hot dogs, their entertainment is Hollywood movies, yet they dress in outlandish "local" clothes like Thai fishermans pants, badly tied sarongs & often looked like whacky clowns in tie dye! They have a parchent to eat their evening meals dressed only in beachwear & women sunbath topless with absolute no regard that this activity in Asia is considered offensive to the local culture. So I can well understand just why the Beach has such obnoxious characters, as it's not far from the truth. But a lot of this film remains unconvincing, like swimming in the open ocean in a straight line? No you would be carried by the current & miss the island entirely! Anyway the Beach ticks on quite nicely until it literally looses the plot in the second half of the film where Richard goes loopy & becomes Rambo & Super Mario at the same time. It is at this point, I quite frankly loose interest in this movie. It makes no sense, adds nothing to the plot & appears to be simply inserted to flesh out the film to an acceptable length of a movie.
Well if anyone is looking for a taste into what backpacking was like in the 90's, this movie almost takes you there...almost. But us backpackers did not live in communes & never would! 5 stars for Tilda Swinton though. I might not agree with her politically (too many actors today forget that their job is to ACT & entertain us, NOT lecture us on Global Governance, climate change & how evil white men are) but Ms Swinton, you rock! x