The Beach (film)

The Beach is a 2000 adventure drama film directed by Danny Boyle, from a screenplay by John Hodge, based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Alex Garland. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton, Virginie Ledoyen, Guillaume Canet, and Robert Carlyle. It was filmed on the Thai island of Ko Phi Phi Le.
The film was released on 11 February 2000, by 20th Century Fox. It was a moderate box office success, grossing $144.1 million against a $50 million budget, but received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the film's scenery, soundtrack, and DiCaprio's performance, but criticized it as a muddled adaptation that loses the book's themes and social commentary.
Richard, a young American backpacker seeking adventure in Bangkok, stays in a drab travelers' hotel on Khao San Road where he meets a young French couple, Françoise and Étienne. He also meets Daffy, who tells him of a pristine, uninhabited island in the Gulf of Thailand with a beautiful hidden beach. Daffy explains that he settled there in secret several years earlier, but difficulties arose and he left. The next day, Richard finds out that Daffy committed suicide and left him a map to the island. Richard persuades Françoise and Étienne to accompany him to the island, and the three travel to Ko Samui. Richard meets two American surfers, Zeph and Sammie, who have heard rumors of the island and he gives them a copy of the map.
En route to the island, Richard becomes infatuated with Françoise. After swimming to the island from a neighbouring island, they find a cannabis plantation guarded by armed Thai farmers. Avoiding detection, they make their way across the island and meet Keaty, who brings them to a community of travellers living on the island in secret. Sal, the community's English leader, explains that the farmers allow them to stay so long as they keep to themselves and do not allow any more travelers to come to the island. Richard lies that they have not shown the map to anyone else. The trio becomes integrated into the community.
One night, Françoise invites Richard to the beach, where she tells him that she is falling in love with him and they start an affair. Although they hope to keep it secret, the community finds out. Although he is angry, Étienne says he will not stand in their way if Françoise is happier with Richard.
Sal selects Richard to accompany her on a supply run to Ko Pha Ngan. They encounter the American surfers who are preparing to search for the island and mention Richard's map. Sal is upset but believes Richard when he says they have no copy of the map. To ensure Sal's confidentiality, Richard has sex with her at her order. On their return to the island, Richard lies to Françoise about having sex with Sal.
Three of the community fishermen are attacked by a shark while spearfishing. One is killed and another, Christo, is severely injured. He pleads for medical attention but Sal will only allow him to leave if he promises not to disclose the location of the beach. However, now terrified of the water, Christo refuses to be taken to the mainland for medical treatment but Sal refuses to allow any doctors to be brought to the island to treat him. As the man's condition worsens, the islanders simply leave him in the jungle to die, but Étienne refuses to abandon him.
When the surfers turn up on the neighboring island, Sal orders Richard to send them away and destroy their map. She tells everyone that she and Richard had sex, which leaves Françoise angry and heartbroken, causing her to return to Étienne. Isolated from the group, Richard begins to lose his sanity, imagining that he is conversing with the deceased Daffy.
The surfers reach the island but are discovered and killed by the farmers. Shocked at witnessing their deaths, Richard smothers Christo to put him out of his misery and gathers Françoise and Étienne to leave the island.
Richard is captured by the farmers along with Françoise and Étienne. The farmers are furious with the community for breaking their deal not to allow any more newcomers. The lead farmer gives Sal a gun loaded with a single bullet and orders her to make a choice: kill Richard and the group will be allowed to stay, or else they must all leave immediately. Sal pulls the trigger, but the chamber is empty. Shocked by her willingness to commit murder, the other members of the community abandon Sal, leave the island, and go their separate ways.
Back in the United States, Richard receives an email at an Internet cafe from Françoise with a nostalgic group photograph of the beach community in happier times.
Alex Garland's novel The Beach was published in 1996 and became a success in the United Kingdom. Director Danny Boyle and producer Andrew Macdonald bought the rights to the book using their salaries from their 1997 film A Life Less Ordinary. In August 1997, Boyle, Macdonald, and screenwriter John Hodge went to Thailand, specifically Ko Samui, to scout for locations and get into the mindset of the book.
Ewan McGregor, a frequent collaborator of Boyle's and Macdonald's, was believed to be cast in the lead role, but was ultimately not chosen. The decision contributed to a rift between McGregor and Boyle. It was speculated that Boyle was offered additional funding under the condition that the character of Richard be rewritten to be American and played by a bigger name actor. Whilst promoting T2 Trainspotting on The Graham Norton Show, the dispute between the two was discussed in more depth, with McGregor stating "It was a mis-handling and a mis-understanding over the film and it's a big regret of mine that it went on for so very long... and it didn't matter about The Beach, it was never about that. It was about our friendship. I felt like Danny's actor and it made me a bit rudderless." Boyle stated, "I handled it very very badly and I have apologised to Ewan for it. I felt a great shame about it and how it was handled."
Leonardo DiCaprio, who was coming off of the massive box office success of Titanic, had his pick of lead roles in various films, including American Psycho and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Boyle sought DiCaprio for the role, and after months of deliberation, DiCaprio signed on to the film in July 1998. DiCaprio chose the project because he felt the novel's themes about disaffection and discovery spoke to his generation, saying, "We've never had anything to fight for, so we're constantly looking for things to believe in. Richard...is so influenced by the media and television and especially films that he's constantly searching for an emotional event in real time. In a world where everything conforms to our comfort, the only valuable things are those that go beyond anticipation. I think that this is what Richard is looking for, a world beyond anticipation." DiCaprio was paid a $20 million salary.
A major change the film adaptation made to the book is the ending, which in the novel is much darker. Boyle later said he wanted the film to be more critical of its unlikable characters, a "sociocritique of these invaders", but the big-budget studio nature of the film necessitated more sympathetic characters, a romantic subplot, and a more upbeat ending.
Filming took place from January to April 1999. Members of the cast and crew were involved in an accident during production when a long-tail boat they were on capsized. It was reported that the incident involved both Boyle and DiCaprio. No one was injured.
The beach seen in the film is not the same as in real life. There is a gap between mountains on the actual beach in Thailand. The special effects crew digitally added some of the surrounding mountains during the post-production phase.
The waterfall scene, where DiCaprio and others jump from a high cliff to the water below, was filmed in Khao Yai National Park in central Thailand, at the Haew Suwat Waterfall.
The map in the film was illustrated by Alex Garland, the author of the novel The Beach. He received credit for this as the cartographer. Interior scenes at the fleabag hotel Richard stays at in the film's beginning were shot at the On On Hotel in Phuket.
In 1999, Hélène de Fougerolles auditioned for the film but casting directors immediately told her that she was not mysterious enough for the character as she arrived with blond hair in pigtails. She asked them if she could "be an extra or serve coffees there, three months in Thailand, it sounds idyllic!". Although firstly reluctant because the actress was already established in the industry, they finally accepted. As journalists were not allowed to come take pictures on set, the only picture the press could have of Guillaume Canet and Virginie Ledoyen before shooting started was their departure at Paris airport with de Fougerolles. The photo made the cover of Studio Magazine, from which the international press reported her as officially cast. This eventually lent her lines edited out of the final cut but present in the DVD extras.
The soundtrack for the film, co-produced by Pete Tong, features the international hits "Pure Shores" by All Saints and "Porcelain" by Moby, as well as tracks by New Order, Blur, Underworld, Orbital, Faithless, Sugar Ray, and others. Leftfield's contribution to the soundtrack, "Snakeblood", was found to have sampled Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's "Almost" without permission, leading to a lawsuit; band member Neil Barnes said he forgot to remove the sample from the finished track. The songs "Synasthasia" by Junkie XL, "Out of Control" by The Chemical Brothers, "Fiesta Conga" by Movin' Melodies, "Redemption Song" by Bob Marley, "Neon Reprise" by Lunatic Calm and "Smoke Two Joints" by Chris Kay and Michael Kay were also included in the movie but omitted from the soundtrack. The teaser trailer for the film featured "Touched" by VAST.
The film score was composed by Angelo Badalamenti, and a separate album containing selections of his score was released as well.
The film opened on February 11, 2000, in both the United Kingdom and the United States. The film opened at number 2 at the box office in both countries, with a weekend gross of $15,277,921 in the United States and Canada behind Scream 3, and a gross of £2,418,321 ($3.9 million) in the United Kingdom and Ireland behind Toy Story 2.
The following weekend it opened in eight other countries (Austria, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Puerto Rico, South Africa and Switzerland) opening at number one in all of them with a gross of $4.9 million in its first five days in France and $2.3 million in its opening four-day weekend in Germany.
Global takings totaled $144.1 million, of which $39 million was from the United States and Canada and $19 million from the United Kingdom. The budget of the film was $50 million.
The film has been released on VHS and DVD. It was released on Blu-ray in Spain in October 2022. The standard DVD release included nine scenes that were deleted from the film, including an alternative opening which to an extent resembles the one in the novel. These were later included in a Special Edition DVD release, along with Danny Boyle's commentary on what might have been their purpose. There is also an alternative ending which depicts Sal dying by suicide and everyone loading up on a boat from the raft.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 21% of 122 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Critics say The Beach is unfocused and muddled, a shallow adaptation of the novel it is based on. Points go to the gorgeous cinematography, though." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 43 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Critics suggested that DiCaprio's fame post-Titanic might have contributed to the financial success of this film, which came out less than three years after the James Cameron blockbuster. CNN's Paul Clinton said "Leonardo DiCaprio's main fan base of screaming adolescent girls won't be disappointed with The Beach. The majority of the film displays the titanic-sized young heartthrob sans his shirt in this story about the pseudo-angst and alienation of a young man from the United States escaping civilization and his computer-obsessed generation." He agreed with most others that The Beach was "nothing to write home about".
Roger Ebert said the film missed out on exploring the darker themes of the novel. He wrote: "Watching The Beach is like experiencing a script conference where only sequences are discussed--never the whole film...There are the elements here for a romantic triangle, for a man-against-the-jungle drama, for a microcosm-of-civilization parable or for a cautionary lesson about trying to be innocent in a cruel world...and that's material for satire or insight, I guess, although the movie offers none."
In a positive review, Wesley Morris of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Despite a flat finale and some laughable hypothesizing about pursuits of liberty, the movie has its own addictive elements: well-used electronica, Darius Khondji's photography and the nonstop charisma of its star." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised DiCaprio's performance, writing "DiCaprio delivers strongly, showing Richard as selfish, manipulative, cowardly and dangerously naive — all of which makes the young man’s hard-won maturity...more affecting."
The film has gained retrospective praise, with critics singling out Boyle's visual flourishes, Khondji's cinematogaphy, and DiCaprio's choice to make an unconventional, commercially risky film at the height of Leo-mania. Writing for The Atlantic, Joe Reid said, "Positioned squarely between the boyishness of his 1990s work and the calcified smugness of his Scorsese-and-beyond adult period, The Beach sits at a fascinating crossroads of youth and respectability for [DiCaprio]. His performance pulls from all corners of his arsenal; it's sexy and brave and wild-eyed and, eventually, exceedingly vulnerable. I can't say whether it was the failure of The Beach that did it, but DiCaprio has never been this adventurous on screen since. And he's certainly never been this risky when it comes to selecting projects."
Controversy arose during the making of the film due to 20th Century Fox's bulldozing and landscaping of the natural beach setting of Ko Phi Phi Le to make it more "paradise-like". The production altered some sand dunes and cleared some coconut trees and grass to widen the beach. Fox set aside a fund to reconstruct and return the beach to its natural state; however, lawsuits were filed by environmentalists who believed the damage to the ecosystem was permanent and restoration attempts had failed. Following shooting of the film, there was a clear flat area at one end of the beach that was created artificially with an odd layout of trees which was never rectified, and the entire area remained damaged from the original state until the tsunami of 2004.
The lawsuits dragged on for years. In 2006, Thailand's Supreme Court upheld an appellate court ruling that the filming had harmed the environment and ordered that damage assessments be made. Defendants in the case included 20th Century Fox and some Thai government officials.
The large increase in tourist traffic to the beach as a result of the film resulted in environmental damage to the bay and the nearby coral reefs, prompting Thai authorities to close the beach in 2018.
The restoration period for the bay was lengthened due to travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Blacktip sharks began breeding there again. In 2022, the bay reopened to tourists, under strict protocols of no boats, no swimming and no more than a one-hour visit per person for a limited number of visitors at a time.
After the film premiered in Thailand in 2000, some Thai politicians were upset at the way Thailand was depicted in the film and called for it to be banned. The depiction of the drug culture was said to give Thailand a bad image and having a statue of Buddha in a bar was cited as "blasphemous".
In a 2019 interview with The Independent, Danny Boyle revealed that a television series based on his film has been written by Amy Seimetz. The proposed series is set to take place before the events from the 1996 novel, although it will be updated to occur 20 years later, in 2016.