Great scenery, shame about the script

Rating: 2/10 (16 February 2000)

"The Beach" is blessed with magnificent scenery and outstanding cinematography, courtesy of Darius Kronji. The cast are all up to the job, including many who are unknown to North American audiences. It is a shame that their talents are wasted on a script which is riddled with so many glaring loopholes:
1) The idyllic beach community, which the Leonardo daCaprio character and his two French friends discover, has apparently been in existence on this isolated island for 6 years. So how do they obtain their money for the periodic shopping trips to the Thai mainland for the little luxuries such as deoderants, batteries and Tampaxes which they cannot grow in Paradise?
2) The government of Paradise is always a problem. The Tilda Swinton character has apparently been accepted as the leader, but whether this was arranged by group consensus or sheer force of personality is never explained. It is never made clear how the various tiresome chores (housebuilding, gardening, fishing) are allocated and work enforced. As there are no unifying ideals in the community apart from the aimless pursuit of pleasure, it is hard to see how it could hold together for long.
3) There is a major problem when one of the fishermen who help support the community is badly injured. He is left to die in horrible agony in the jungle - out of sight, out of mind. The loathsome Swinton character fears that, if he was allowed to go to a mainland hospital, the "secret" of the island might leak out. The aimless community beach life carries on regardless. Most of the community raises no serious objection to this act of near-murder. Has no one else fallen sick or been injured in 6 years? Does no one consider what will happen to them if they fall sick?
4) The Tilda Swinton character is one of the dumbest, as well as one of the vilest, group leaders ever portrayed on film. She sleeps with the Leonardo character when they go to the Thai mainland for supplies - despite the fact that both have partners back on the island. She seemingly knows nothing about group dynamics and cares nothing about creating divisive jealousy in such a small and isolated community.
5) Although the group has apparently existed for 6 years, with cheerfully casual indulgence in sex all round, there are no children in the community. Also, none of the characters seems to have any family outside the island - or none they want to keep in touch with. If they care nothing for their biological families, how attached are they going to be to one other?
6) When more unwelcome newcomers discover the island, the leader orders the hapless Leonardo to recover their map and send them away. Does she think they are going to forget the location or fail to tell more outsiders about its existence?
I could go on all night about this crassly adolescent vision of an isolated model community, but no sane adult would want to live there or to pay good money to see this ludicrous movie.