cast : leonardo dicaprio , tilda swinton , virginie ledoyen , guillaume canet , robert carlyle director : danny boyle producer ( s ) : andrew macdonald , callum mcdougall disillusioned and trying to find the spice of life , richard ( leonardo dicaprio ) sets off for thailand . there he a meets crazed man by the name of daffy ( robert carlyle ) who gives him a map to a beach , a secret utopia , then commits suicide . richard sets off for this beach with his neighbors from this hotel , étienne ( guillaume canet ) and françoise ( virginie ledoyen ) . once they get there the three discover a secret society existing on this beach , there richard falls for françoise . this covers about half to two thirds of the movie and aside from the romantic element , which is solely a creation of hollywood , seems to hold to the original novel . the cinematography and general beauty of this part of the movie is breathtaking . i don't think anyone can argue that this movie is visually stunning . but that is were many things go wrong , darius khondji has totally outdone himself in doing the cinematography . though the script and the interpretation of the novel are quite lacking . the plot of the movie moves along at a decent pace for about half of the movie or there abouts . this is where the movie has some great potential , then the three travelers get the island and there is a turn for the better , yes folks i said better . now up to about two thirds of this movie its actually pretty good , nothing spectacular aside from the cinematography but it still has promise . this is where things start to degenerate to something that becomes almost un-watchable . there is even a 'video game' style sequence that borders on the disgusting , it doesn't make sense for the movie and just looks dumb in my opinion ( and i am hoping many other peoples ) . i am hoping that in my little rant i've made it abundantly clear that the movie is lacking quite seriously in plot and uneven pacing , so if you go see it and you don't like it because of this don't blame me . the character development was not up to par either ; i found the character of richard to be nothing more than a spoiled child . although there is a feeble attempt to make this whole story profound it fails and richard ( leo's character ) comes off as a wannabe philosopher . the character seems to be underdeveloped from the get go and seems to just do things for no apparent reason , granted some people are like this ( myself included ) but i nor anyone i know that is fairly random would ever do things of the sort this character does . the next point is that some of the really interesting characters are simply not developed enough . richard is obviously obsessed by françoise at the early stages of the story , yet there is actually very little development along this story line . this i am sure contributes to the movie's lack of core plot and being unfocused . now , i shall move onto something a little better about the movie ( for all you cynics out there the movie did have a few good things about it ) . the cast and acting was passable at the very least , and i think that leonardo dicaprio actually did pretty well in the role of richard . mind you i think the rest of the cast that had some which had reasonably sized roles did equally well if not better . which begs the question why is leonardo paid so much ? ( i think this is a topic all on its own so i won't get into it ) . but i like the fact that there was an international cast used , had only and american cast been used i can see this movie being horrible . the international flavor added a more global feel to the movie that made it that much more bearable . not to mention the movie is set in thailand and a global cast makes more sense . when all is said and done i liked the movie for the most part but the gaping inadequacies of the plot are unforgivable . i would not recommend this movie to anyone , the fact that i liked it has a lot to do with the cinematography and the sheer beauty of the movie not its plot or story . as it is the story tries to be much too philosophical and fails at its attempt . if you do end up going to see this movie be forewarned about its shortcomings . february 21 , 2000 for any comments i can be reached at <a href= " mailto : bootsector@hotmail . com " >bootsector@hotmail . com</a> 
