The Beach review

For American backpacker Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio), temporarily holed up in a flea-pit, Bangkok hotel, visions of paradise start and finish with prising the slim, alluring Francoise (Virginie Ledoyen) away from her boyfriend Etienne (Guillaume Canet).

But then Daffy (Robert Carlyle), a wild-eyed, paranoid veteran traveller crashes in with crazed talk of a tropical island utopia, subsequently scratching out a map which Richard finds pinned to his door. Convincing his Gallic neighbours to join him - with considerable ulterior motive - the trio set out to rediscover Eden.

It has been said that if you'd travelled all that way - completing a mini-triathlon of backbone hurdles en route - only to arrive and discover Tilda Swinton in charge of paradise, it might be better to just turn around and go home. But that's probably being unkind. And anyway, for Richard the appeals are myriad and captivating: cop-off potential with outrageously sexy French girl in a blue lagoon locale offering assorted barmy Europeans to laugh at.

For many, DiCaprio's signature performance may now (unfortunately) be uttering lovestruck mush on a doomed transatlantic tub, but it's worth remembering that this boy really can act, and that notwithstanding, his clean-limbed attractiveness, rapid tan and ready grin are completely characteristic of this sort of cocky, year-out traveller.

As it is, we get the benefit of Leo the actor as well, and a position on the current silver screen A-list is justified by his entirely watchable presence as the flawed centre of this movie: Richard proving to be the grain of sand that The Beach can't quite accommodate into a pearl.

A mostly talented ensemble backs him up well, both looking the part (Ledoyen would surely test the resolve of any red-blooded male) and playing out the moral complexities of an apparently idyllic mini-society hit by threat and sudden crisis.

Baggage, of course, abounds on this film, and while DiCaprio is hauling the legacy (both good and bad) of Titanic along behind him, Messrs Boyle, MacDonald and Hodge have their fair share too, what with the stratospheric success of Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, and the subsequent lukewarm reaction to A Life Less Ordinary.

And we haven't even mentioned how upset the Thai locals got when the production team shipped in 100 artificial coconut trees and allegedly turfed up their unspoilt little island off Phuket (all done, incidentally, with official approval). What they have created here however is a striking if transient film, a deeply sensual and heavily hedonistic experience.

It is rich, sweet and the pleasure of living in this perfect coastal lagoon ripens until it begins to cloy and then decay, as if the dark fruit of paradise had suddenly gone off with a terrible whiff. And perhaps not intentionally, the movie mirrors this change: enthralling, vivid and stunning to begin with; deteriorating and increasingly flawed as the reels roll on.