Alex Garland’s The cult novel The Beach was author Alex Garland’s 1996 debut about a group of young backpackers who discover an ‘idyllic’ island off Bangkok, captured the late-90s zeitgeist. I suppose the main difference is that the book is brilliant, a thought-provoking, darkly funny, intelligent yet highly readable thriller, while the film is quite mediocre (apart from a young Leo DiCaprio). It is Americanised, sexed-up and sometimes incoherent. Even the director himself, Danny Boyle, said that halfway through filming he realised he didn’t even like any of the characters, whereas in the book every single one (with the possible exception of Bugs) has redeeming qualities, and if not exactly loveable, they are at least extremely human. Of course, every film must make drastic changes if it is going to adapt a several-hundred-page novel into a 2-hour feature, so I do keep that in mind.
The main difference is the fact that in the film Richard is American, which annoys me as that means a lot of the character has to change to fit with Americas culture. I also feel as though this makes Richard much less relatable. In the UK it’s a very popular and common thing to go on a gap year to Asia, so this makes the reader instantly understand and relate to the character from the get-go, and I feel like this is less common with Americans, so I don’t quite get that. In general, I just don’t think it was a wise move casting an American and changing the entire identity of the main character, even if he is played by Leo DiCaprio.
In the book it is heavily noted that Richard is a big video gamer, and this is a running memory and theme through the book. It’s a shame that it wasn’t really carried though into the movie, apart from the video game scene. I suppose it was a low-budget way of showing Richard’s complete descent into his fantasy world, but if your budget stretches to Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton and a tropical island, then surely a few explosions and Vietnam-era uniforms to keep Richard’s imaginary world more faithful to the book won’t break the bank.
I also wasn’t really a big fan of the over sexualised nature of the film either. Richard has to have sex with literally every female. I understand and get the temptation of the filmmakers to write in a sex scene with Françoise, whom Richard is clearly strongly attracted to, but when it came to having sex with Sal I didn’t. There is absolutely no sexual chemistry between the characters, and Sal is more of a mother figure in the book, which makes it very strange when watching.
Overall, I think when comparing the two together I think the book definitely wins, but if your viewing them as two separate forms of media I think that the movie is an easy watch and the book is a great read.
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