This was Milla Jovovich's first starring role. She was 15 when she starred in this movie, including the nude scenes.
During an interview, Milla Jovovich recalled filming the scene where she had to wake her 19-year-old co-star Brian Krause's character and get him out of bed after he experiences his first sexual dream. She said that to surprise her, they put a piece of wood in his pants to simulate an erection. She saw this and started cracking up so hard she forgot her line.
The first part of the movie focuses on the struggles facing Sarah, a widow played by Lisa Pelikan, as she adapts to the sometimes harsh realities of life on a tropical island with two infants in tow, daughter Lilli and Richard, whose parents died at sea. Over the next eight years, Sarah educates the children in the hopes of one day returning to the civility of her former life in San Francisco.
Unlike Brooke Shields, who insisted on using a body double for her nude scenes in The Blue Lagoon (1980), Milla Jovovich decided to bare all for the camera. During an interview in 1991 to promote the movie, she said: "It was my choice because (the nude scenes) were not so incredibly explicit that I needed to worry. I had a robe on until they yelled action and I'd put it right back on when they yelled cut.".