THE BEACH A film review by Andrew Hicks
**1/2 out of ****
Normally, I try to avoid pitting novels and their film adaptations against each other. Side-by-side comparisons are inevitable, of course, but when i read the book and then go right out to see the movie, whether each is good or not, I can't help noticing the subtle differences. The things that were cut, the things that were changed, the things that now make far less sense because of the other things that were cut and changed.
I was about 40 pages from the end of Alex Garland's novel THE BEACH when I saw the big-screen version. Like many adaptations, the intricacies of the original story were cannibalized, simplified or straight-up ignored in the movie. The substitute? Vague, steamy sex. Sex that was only contemplated or not mentioned at all in the book now becomes necessary because this is a Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle, and that means the female element will be coming to see it. I guess director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) thinks the female element likes its cinematic sex vague, steamy and seemingly out of left-field.
So, completely gone in the movie version are most of the moments of human politics and wry humor. The voice of the narrator in this movie isn't the one from the book -- it's Leo's, obviously, but the words aren't usually even the same. They're dumbed-down, less clever, mostly humorless and designed to fit in with the overall lack of subtlety in DiCaprio's performance. He probably considers the early outbursts of his character (absent from the book version) to be foreshadowing, but to me they spoil most elements of nuance or surprise that should come later on.
You want an example of a movie that perfectly captured the essence of its source book? Look at the David Fincher-directed Fight Club. It crackled with the kinetic energy of the book, condensing ideas instead of simplifying, finding ways to show rather than tell or eliminate. Boyle buries the narrative by moving from Point A to B to C, and so on. The reasons why don't make much sense to newcomers. Motivation from these characters? As far as the movie is concerned, the whimsy and boredom on their faces are all the motivation that can be explained within the given running time.
That's not to say THE BEACH is entirely bad; it's a fairly well-botched adaptation job that manages to bring to life the sequestered, Eden-like world of the book. I mentioned Fight Club because the opening of The Beach almost reminded me of it. Leo's character is a world traveler out on his own -- that's about all the background we get -- who is just now touching down in Bangkok in search of thrills. While an edgy techno score plays, Leo throws back a shot of snake blood while the assembled group of Thais looks on, impressed with his American angst.
At the two-bit hotel he's staying in, walls so thin they don't even reach the ceiling, Leo overhears the incoherent ramblings of a drunken Scotsman (Robert Carlyle, who feels no pain and can push himself longer and harder than any normal man). He's rambling about some idyllic beach society that's hidden away from the eyes of modern man. And he even has a map to the place, which he leaves for Leo to find after he (i.e. the drunken Scot) slashes his wrists in the dead of night.
On a whim, Leo decides to strike out for this beach. On another whim -- a steamy, vague whim -- he asks the neighbors (Guillaume Canet and Staffan Kihlbom, the French couple he could hear through the walls) to go with him. And, no questions asked, no deliberation shown, they head for the island, which is located on designated Marine Park land. That means they have to swim from the next island over, and after Canet and Kihlbom play a practical joke on him, we see just how volatile the movie protagonist can get.
The movie shows us the island in all its tour-book beauty, as well as the obstacle course travelers have to go through to arrive at THE BEACH. In particular, the enormous waterfall and field of pot, carefully tended to by the Thai drug dealers who occupy half the island. (Idyllic hippies and Thai druglords sharing an island -- sounds like a bad, neo-"Gilligan's Island" sitcom premise, doesn't it?)
Naturally, the politics of this secret society ("a full-scale community of travelers not just passing through but actually living here") are toned way down in the movie version. There's no real exploration of the work details, no Tet festival, no food poisoning, and the "Jed" character (one of the book's best) is missing entirely. What we do have are Keaty (Paterson Joseph), the black Briton the Leo character bonds with, and Sal (Tilda Swinton), the somewhat volatile unofficial leader of THE BEACH group. This being DiCaprio country, the absence of plot politics is compensated with an abundance of vague soap steam, most notably an underwater, "phosphorescence" love scene.
THE BEACH was called the first mainstream Generation-X novel, but the movie has been stripped of any such context, save the sampling of Apocalypse Now moments and surreal Sega-game vision toward the end. Now it's in Hollywood hands, which means the most profound idea expressed is the paradox of trying to create an ideal paradise in a frighteningly unideal world. These travelers want to hop from place to place, experiencing thrills, but only as long as it comes with the illusion of uncharted territory. Too many other travelers there, and the original people come to resent it. Rifts are created. Problems arise. (Oh, and there's the Fight Club-familiar notion that ours is a generation raised in unsatisfying, ungodly technological nightmare, and that there's no sane way for us to cope.)
The ending is also of the "less complicated, more Hollywood" ideology. We're denied the (ironically) much more cinematic shock-value ending of the book, although I'm betting the MPAA wouldn't have been too keen on that. Anyway, like I was saying, the reason I don't normally read books before watching and reviewing their movie counterparts is because of the nitpicky comparisons that result. This time, though, the differences are enormous and noticeable and really distract from the experience.
On a superficial level, I enjoyed the cinematography in THE BEACH, and the virtual unknowns in the cast all hold their own with Leo. (You have to wonder why DiCaprio is the only person anyone's heard of in The Beach. Was there only $20 million in the casting budget to begin with?) Even the cannibalized plot has some merit -- i.e. not all the book's nuances are missing here -- but overall I'd definitely say this movie has only the illusion of uncharted territory.
http://students.missouri.edu/~ahicks/movies.html
copyright 2000 andrew hicks
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