The Beach (Wide Screen) > Reviews > Ahhhhhhhh Phuket

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Indifferent to it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Standard
How does it compare to similar films?	Good

Advantages:	not too bad a movie
Disadvantages:	but it rips the book to shreds

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Well thats 2 hours of my life I´m never going to see again, depressing isn´t it - sorry if you liked the movie yourselves and it isn´t `that´ bad but I´m a big fan of the book and although some movies of books leave out little bits of the storyline, this movie absolutely slaughtered the book.

But its a review of the movie you´ve all clicked to see so its a review of the movie you´re going to get, a quick insight into the storyline of the movie, a young American backpacker named Richard decides that he wants to visit Thailand in search of a different way of life, upon arriving he finds that although hes in a completely different country life is still pretty much the same until one night, he meets Daffy a crazed man who rambles on about `The Beach´, a paradise that nobody knows exists where the sand is golden and the waters are a pure blue, of course it wouldn´t be much of a movie if Richard didn´t investigate would it? so of course he does, taking a French couple along with him, he goes off in search of this paradise and finds a whole lot more than he expected.

Right I´ll stop there, no no it doesn´t matter what you offer me heck squiggles could offer me her whole supply of chocolate, nothing is going to make me go any further into the tale, suffice to say that there are plenty twists and plot changes to keep you all interested, but I feel that they are all intertwined in a way so if I tell one it´ll spoil it.

"You what!" I can here you all shouting now, "this is OctoberSwimmer´s review I´m reading here he usually rambles a little longer than this!" well maybe you´re not shouting (or even thinking for that matter) but theres plenty more I can talk about here lets start with the setting shall we? well of course we´re supposed to be looking at a living paradise here with the occasional flit back into Thailand and its all been done extremely well, first off the scenes in Thailand, well they´ve been shot brilliantly - be it the hustle and bustle of a busy city or the laid back ways of a beach resort they are both extremely realistic, OK fair enough its not that hard to make it look realistic but the little time there is spent in Thailand its just a refreshing change to see them make even the shorter scenes realistic.

Now onto the actual scenery of the Beach itself well of course this is going to be a little harder to review as its supposedly paradise and.... well..... there isn´t anywhere that I´ve been that I would call paradise so we´re going to have to bluff it a bit folks! It all looks extremely well put together, it was shot on a real-life beach (as I´m sure we´re all aware after the legal actions taken by Phuket to stop the movie going ahead) so of course the beach is going to look real, as are the trees, the sea and the cliffes because basically, they are real! the location selectors definitely struck gold with choosing this beach though, as it looks as near to paradise as we can get for a movie! The sand truly is golden and the water is definitely a clear shade of blue so when it comes to settings they haven´t done too bad.

Acting, well, unless you´ve had your head stuck in the sand for the last few years you´ll all know that Richard (the main character) is played by Leonardo Di Caprio, and shock horror - he turns in a good performance, showing Richards descent into madness and following struggle to regain his sanity with a grace and elegance that lights up the screen, this truly is one of Leo´s better performances almost topping that of his appearance in `The Basketball Diaries´ when he screams at people in anger you actually believe that he really is frustrated with them and all the way through the movie there isn´t one scene I can remember which I could pick at his performance in.

But then theres a few other characters as well so in appearance order -

Francoise (Virginie Ledoyen), a good performance, not a great one just good, basically shes the love interest in the movie, even if shes supposedly in a relationship with another man, her scenes are few and far between, we see a lot of her at the start but as with most of the other characters she fades out in the second half of the movie - but what we see of her is very little, as I said shes mainly a love interest and well she puts in a good performance but with so little of a storyline to match its very hard to be memorable for that one film.

Ettienne (Guillaume Canet), two thumbs up time, as Francoise´s original boyfriend and promptly jealous ex-boyfriend Canet plays a blinder, of course the movie requires him to roll over and let Di Caprio take over but all the time he is lurking around and always `there or there-abouts´ with a commanding appearance on screen he is one of the really strong members of the cast, that I hope we´ll grow to hear a lot more from.

Daffy (Robert Carlyle), the mad man, plain and simple, after the opening scenes hes confined to being a figment of Richards imagination and a driving force in his insanity, well Carlyle comes out on top with a stunning performance, you genuinely believe that hes insane almost as soon as he arrives on screen and in the dream sequences he follows up in he shows how good an actor he really is showing us a completely believable performance as a madman who is slowly dragging another human being into his state of mind.

Sal (Tilda Swinton), well not the best performance I´ve seen, she plays the unofficial `leader´ of the beach and well, sorry it just doesn´t appear too believable - she tries, oh lord how she tries but something just doesn´t seem to gel, any other character and I believe Swinton would have turned out a better performance I just feel that this wasn´t the character for her, shes supposedly in charge of everyone but theres never any real indication of how she keeps the beach in order.

Now then thats the acting out of the way onto the music, we´ve all heard Pure Shores by All Saints, well its much more of the same all the way through, the movie seems to rely on the kind of music that falls in between both Pop and Dance music, and unlike some movies its played a lot, almost every other scene will have one of those tunes where you find yourself humming away because you know the song you just can´t put your finger on who its by or what its called, is it necessary, well yes and no, yes each time the music is used its definitely the right tune for the right moment, but no because its a little over-used - as I said its almost every other scene, and its just a little bit of a touch of overkill.

So in finishing, watching this movie left me a little disappointed, partly because I was hoping for an on-screen version of the book which it definitely isn´t, but mostly because theres an excellent movie in here waiting to burst out and be seen, but whenever its viable the creators just seem to turn the other cheek, don´t let me put you off like this, its worth a rental but maybe not a full purchase.