The Beach

John Hodge's occasionally loose adaptation of Alex Garland's best-selling novel follows the fortunes of Richard (DiCaprio), a young traveler visiting Thailand. While staying in a hostel in Bangkok, the occupant of the next room, a shaven-headed suicide named Daffy (Carlyle) bequeaths to Richard a scrawled map showing the location of 'The Beach', a legendary island paradise whose utopian community is presided over by Sal (Swinton, perhaps best known for her portrayal of the title role in 'Orlando').

Richard, together with his neighbours Etienne and Francoise, follows Daffy's map to the island with its cliff-encircled lagoon and eponymous beach. After narrowly avoiding the armed marijuana farmers on the other side of the island, they find and join the island's community.

Little by little, the cracks begin to appear in this idyllic picture, as the community is torn apart by guilt, jealousy, and fear of discovery.

While not a strictly accurate adaptation of the book, with one major character excised entirely, and the relationship between Richard and Francoise exaggerated somewhat, this is an enjoyable film with interesting characterisation and visually stunning scenery. Swinton and Carlyle's performances as, respectively, the island's driven matriarch, and haunted apostate, are excellent, and even Leonardo DiCaprio wasn't bad; we can hope that he may yet deliver on the promise of his pre-Titanic days (which film Boyle, incidentally, describes as ''a blip'').

Nicholas Jackson