The Blue Lagoon

The Blue Lagoon is a 1980 American romance and adventure film starring Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins, produced and directed by Randal Kleiser. The plot is about two young children stranded on a tropical island after a shipwreck. Emotional feelings and physical changes arise as they reach puberty and fall in love. The screenplay by Douglas Day Stewart was based on the novel The Blue Lagoon by Henry De Vere Stacpoole. The original music score was composed by Basil Poledouris. The film was marketed with the tagline "A sensuous story of natural love."

In the Victorian period, two young children and a galley cook are the survivors of a shipwreck. In the turmoil of the burning ship from which they escaped, they had become separated from another lifeboat that the boy's father and the girl's uncle was in. After days at sea, they are stranded on a lush tropical island, a real paradise. The cook, Paddy Button, teaches the children one valuable lesson: certain berries shouldn't be eaten because they will put you to sleep. Eventually Paddy dies and together, cousins Richard and Emmeline Lestrange have to survive, which is quite easy as there are no dangerous animals on the island. Years later, Richard and Emmeline have grown tall, strong and beautiful; they are living in a self-constructed hut, strange emotions start influencing their relationship. Although the two teenagers had no grown-ups to educate them for all that time, their behavior stayed civilized.

Richard and Emmeline fall in love because of both their solitude and their real love for each other, and begin to discover their sexuality as a way to express their affections. They make love quite often for several months, and Emmeline gets pregnant, totally unaware of the fact that a child is growing inside her. On the night their baby boy is born, Richard finds out about the origins of the drums they hear from time to time from the forbidden side of the island. They come from a savage group of natives who apparently practice human sacrifices. Richard runs back just in time to see Emmeline give birth to a baby boy whom they named Paddy. Both are confused by the arrival of the tiny infant, and Richard associates him with himself. The two young castaways spend all their time together with Paddy, teaching him how to swim, throw a spear, and play in the mud.

One day the two young parents and Paddy are out in a boat and lose their oars. Though not far from shore, they are unable to return because of the presence of sharks. After days of being adrift at sea, Paddy eats some berries that were in the boat. Richard and Emmeline recognize the berries as being the ones that will put them to sleep. Hopelessly lost at sea, they decide to eat the berries as well, awaiting death. Somewhat later, a ship finds them floating in the boat; the ship is led by Richard's father and Emmeline's uncle, Arthur Lestrange, who has been searching for them for years. He asks, "Are they dead?" and a sailor answers, "No, sir. They are just sleeping." The ambiguous ending leaves it uncertain as to whether they are sleeping and can be revived or if they are dead.

The story is eventually continued in the sequel Return to the Blue Lagoon.