Forget the snotty reviews, it's good!

Rating: 9/10 (20 December 2001)

Well, I feel like a freak of nature but I really like this film. Despite overwhelmingly bad reviews from most, this film just takes me away to another place and I really did enjoy it. Some people just really need to lighten up.
This film brought out a deep sense of longing in me about my travels and about that search for the ultimate paradise. I found the young people in the backpacker colony on the Beach to actually very similar in looks and attitude to many young backpackers abroad. I also found the sharp contrasts between the Beach and the town on the mainland to be very well done and very true about young westerners in Thailand.
The Beach was different, it was exotic. The film didn't end neatly, and that brings up all sorts of ideas about whether or not such a utopia could exist without human greed destroying it. Tilda Swinton did a superb job as Sal, the colony's leader. And Leo Di Caprio was good too as a cocky young American guy looking for a good time but getting in over his head. By the end of the movie, when he's back in the West looking back at that secret place, it was really sad. The constrasts were such so well done...
I liked The Beach a lot, and I'll say it proud!