IMDb plot summary: Vicenarian 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.
Directed by Danny Boyle. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Virgine Ledoyen, Guillaume Canet, and Tilda Swinton.
So this is my third of three Danny Boyle movies I've watched lately in preparation for a Danny Boyle rank-a-thon in my Flickcharters Facebook group. Two Boyle movies ago I said of Shallow Grave, "What a strange and fascinating movie," and I wanted to open this review the exact same way before realizing I'd already said it. But it's true of this as well. It's this bizarre movie about... tourism and cults and maybe toxic masculinity (but that might not be on purpose) and while it doesn't always quite hit the lofty heights it's aiming for, it's definitely ambitious. This is the most unlikable I've ever seen Leonardo DiCaprio, and that includes his turn as a racist slave owner in Django Unchained. He's just a monstrous human being here, and watching him get sucked into this weird beach cult is... so interesting. I'm not sure it holds together from beginning to end, but it's sure fun to watch it try.
How it entered my Flickchart:
The Beach > The Commitments
The Beach < Husbands and Wives
The Beach < An American Tail
The Beach < The Major and the Minor
The Beach > Blackmail Is My Life
The Beach > The Madness of King George
The Beach > A Separation
The Beach > Going My Way
The Beach < Single White Female
The Beach > Duck Soup
The Beach > To Be or Not to Be (1942)
The Beach > One, Two, Three
Final spot: #1355 out of 3082.
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