FAQ

This film had some differences from the novel that wasn't seen in the film:

• Richard's obsession with war and video games is explained a bit more in the novel.
• Keaty is not obsessed with his Game Boy in the film.
• Richard never sleeps with Françoise despite having feelings for her, which he thinks are reciprocated, saying that he considers Étienne a good guy and would not want to do that to him.
• Richard never sleeps with Sal, nor is it Sal who accompanies him to the mainland for supplies, but rather a character called Jed (who patrols the island's perimeter) who does not appear in the film. In the book, Jed is the person who leads Richard, Etienne, and Françoise to the community, not Keaty.
• Ella (who works for Unhygienix), Jean (the leader of the gardening detail), Cassie (who works for Bugs), Jesse (who works in the gardening detail), Moshe (the head of the second fishing detail), and the two unnamed Yugoslavian girls (who work for Moshe) do not appear in the film.
• The part where Keaty catches a dead squid that gives some of the island's inhabitants food poisoning is not in the film.
• Karl escaping from the island in the beach community's main boat was not in the film.
• The ending is different from the book's, which had Richard, Françoise, Étienne, Keaty, and Jed attempting to escape from the now crumbling community. In the book's epilogue after their successful escape, they move into their respective lives. Richard loses touch with Étienne and Françoise yet finds it hard to be totally freed of the effects of his experiences in that "parallel universe."
• Richard never received an e-mail from Françoise with a picture after their farewell.

Daffy goes crazy because he realizes that the problem isn't the mainland civilization, but the island civilization. He doesn't fit in with anyone on the mainland anymore and he can't stay at the island either because he believes that the island civilization is poisonous, so he draws a map and gives it to Richard hoping that more people will discover it, possibly from over a disagreement between him and Sal over how the island community should be run. Realizing that he will never be able to adjust back into a normal lifestyle, he kills himself.