Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Twenty-something Richard travels to Thailand and finds himself in possession of a strange map. Rumours state that it leads to a solitary beach paradise, a tropical bliss - excited and intrigued, he sets out to find it.
The Beach is visually stunning — Boyle and DoP Darius Khondji capture Thailand's landscapes and the island paradise with genuinely gorgeous, lush cinematography that earns a high mark. The plot has an intriguing premise that descends into darker Lord-of-the-Flies territory, executed with moderate success but hampered by a protagonist who remains oddly detached and unsympathetic. DiCaprio's performance is serviceable but never fully convincing in the role, and the supporting cast is thinly written. The film borrows its dark-utopia-gone-wrong concept from the novel competently but doesn't add much cinematically. The ending feels rushed and tonally unresolved, failing to satisfyingly pay off the psychological breakdown the film had been building toward.