A competent film version of an excellent book

Rating: Null/10 (9 August 2003)

After the runaway success of Alex Garland's novel on which this film is based, it was only to be expected that people would come away disappointed. A few years on, though, it deserves a repeat viewing.
This is a film for the MTV generation - quick cuts, frantic camerawork, unnatural lighting and camera angles, and a soundtrack from the likes of Leftfield, Moby, Underworld, Faithless and others. This makes it a very watchable film, but prevents the film's moral having any genuine weight in the 'Lord Of The Flies' or 'Apocalypse Now' sense.
And comparisons to 'Lord Of The Flies' are justified. Not just in the superficial sense that a group of humans are on an island, shut off from the outside world; this is a story about the way people would behave in a state of nature (i.e. away from civilisation and the political institutions that accompany it), and as such reveals a great deal about our collective psyche. Sadly, a film of this length is inadequate for the purpose of fully exploring human nature to the extent that Garland did, but Danny Boyle relays the book's central messages without being overly heavy-handed.
The central performances are solid, if nothing particularly memorable (with the exception of Robert Carlyle, who is always memorable), though I'm not too sure about Tilda Swinton and Lars Arentz-Hansen (Sal and Bugs), especially Arentz-Hansen. In his defense, his character is poorly written - a pale imitation of his counterpart in the novel. Virginie Ledoyen is great; we should see more of her. Please?
Like 'Lord Of The Flies', this is a story in which the characters represent different aspects of human nature. Part of the reason that I like this film, despite its flaws, is that I can see bits of myself in each of the characters, and bits of them in me. In particular, I feel like I can identify with Richard, and I suspect a lot of people feel the same. He represents the man who rejects civilisation and its values without realising how much he depends on them; even when he finds paradise, he finds himself pretending that he's in a Vietnam film, or that he is the central character in a videogame. The irony is that by trying to show us that adventure isn't as glamourous as it seems, 'The Beach' makes adventure seem glamourous, just like all the 'war is hell' movies like Full Metal Jacket glamourize war.
I guess escapism is in our nature, and stories like 'The Beach' only strengthen our desire to escape. Somewhere, maybe...