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Empire (UK) - March 2000 by Angie Errigo Getting away with it all on an unspoilt
tropical beach is not the idyll of your lottery winning dreams in this unnerving
drama of a hidden Eden where obsessive travellers disassociate from the
world. DiCaprio is backpacker Richard, who
thinks he´s worldly-wise, but is so "The young American abroad" when he seeks
adventure and danger in Thailand. A strange encounter with crazed Daffy (Robert
Carlyle), who rants of a perfect, secret beach, seems the travel tip for him.
And he recruits a French girl he fancies rotten (Virginie Ledoyen) and her
amiable boyfriend (Guillaume Canet) to join him on a mysterious, funny, scary
journey to the spectacularly beautiful (take a bow, cinematographer Darius
Kondji) haven. There Sal (Tilda Swinton) holds sway
over a community of drop-outs who are kind of a cross between the Swiss Family
Robinson and an apocalytic water sport cult. Like Garland´s novel, the film will
be compard with Lord of the Flies as the absence of societal constraints and
concerns creates a moral vacuum for wild things to rumpus mightily. The Beach is
more a microcosm of the modern world, though, with a more experienced gang and
their alternative attempts to connect with one another riven by their secrets,
desires, jealousies and conpetitiveness. They import their own serpents into
this paradise. DiCaprio´s perfect as the smartarsed
thrill-seeker and the more wry narrator with hindsight, but he works very hard
for his reputed $20 million fee when required to turn into a bug-eating nutter.
Despite the dodginess of this interlude, however, Boyle´s direction holds a true
line between allure and horror, and Hodge´s script is intriguing and forceful.
It´s much better than rumoured: entertaining, engrossing, and ripe for discusion
- somewhere civilized - afterwardss. * |