The Blue Lagoon is a 1980 English language romance and adventure film starring Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins, produced and directed by Randal Kleiser. 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 and the cinematography was by Nestor Almendros.
The film tells the story of two young children marooned on a tropical island paradise in the South Pacific. Without either the guidance or restrictions of society, emotional feelings and physical changes arise as they reach puberty and fall in love.
In the Victorian period, two young children, Richard and Emmeline Lestrange are passengers on a sailing ship in the South Pacific with Richard's father. (Emmeline's parents are dead, and she calls Richard's father "uncle".) A fire breaks out, destroying the ship. Galley cook Paddy Button gets the children into a lifeboat with him, but they are separated from the other survivors and drift out to sea. After days afloat, they come upon a lush tropical island. Paddy assumes responsibility for caring for the small children, teaching them how to behave, how to forage for food, build shelter, etc. He sees evidence of human sacrifice on the other side of the island, and tells them "the bogeyman" is there, making them agree to a "law" that they will never go there. Another "law" is that they must never eat a certain scarlet berry that Emmeline finds; he calls them "never-wake-up berries".
One night Paddy dies in a drunken binge. At Emmeline's request, the two set out in the lifeboat to find another place to live, and they build a new home together on a different beach. Years pass and they both grow into strong and beautiful teenagers. They live in a self-constructed hut and spend their days together fishing and swimming. Their bodies mature and develop, and they become physically attracted to each other, but do not know how to express it. Emmeline is shocked when she experiences her first menstruation and is embarrassed to explain it to Richard. Later, when his awkward desire to hold her is rebuffed, he goes off and masturbates.
They start to have conflicts between them, such as when Richard sees a ship in the distance and races to light their pre-built signal fire, but Emmeline, who also sees it and is near the signal, doesn't light it because she doesn't want to leave. However, when Emmeline accidentally steps on a poisonous stonefish and nearly dies, Richard tells her of his fear of losing her. Reconciled, they become increasingly physically affectionate, and have sexual intercourse. This becomes a regular part of their life together until Emmeline complains that it hurts; unknown to either of them, she is pregnant. Knowing nothing about childbirth (they had only been taught the "cabbage patch" story), they are mystified by the changes to her body, thinking that Emmeline is only getting fat, until she gives birth to a boy, and discovers breastfeeding by accident.
The young couple spend all their time with the child, whom they call Paddy, after the last adult they ever knew. They teach him how to swim with them, and he grows into a happy, healthy toddler. One day, while the parents are playing with the boy in the mud along the shore, a ship approaches. They both see it, but this time Richard doesn't move to flag the ship down. On board the ship is Richard's father Arthur who is obsessively searching for them. Watching them through a telescope, all he can see are two naked people, covered in mud and with a baby, and cannot bring himself to believe that it is the missing, civilised children he is looking for. The ship thus passes on.
On a visit by lifeboat to the beach where they lived with Paddy Button, neither parent notices when little Paddy picks a bunch of never-wake-up berries and brings them with him when Emmeline and he reboard the boat. She dozes off, waking to discover that they have drifted off the beach and Paddy has pushed one of the oars overboard. Richard swims out to them, but a shark arrives, and the other oar is lost in holding it off to allow Richard to get in the boat. Unable to recover either oar without risking shark attack, they drift out to sea.
After some time, Richard and Emmeline wake to find Paddy innocently eating the never-wake-up berries. As Paddy slowly slips into unconsciousness, Richard splits the remaining berries into two handfuls. They silently eat the berries, and lie down embracing to await death. Arthur's ship comes across them floating in the boat. Arthur asks, "Are they dead?" and the ship's captain answers, "No, sir. They're asleep."
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