Title: Leave the World Behind
Describe This Movie In One Clerks Quote:
DANTE: But you hate people!
RANDAL: But I love gatherings! Isn’t it ironic?
Brief Plot Synopsis: It’s the end of the world as we know it and honestly, I’m pretty bummed.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 2 incisors out of 5.
Tagline: “There’s no going back to normal.”
Better Tagline: “So no one told you life was going to be this way.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Amanda Sanford (Julia Roberts) doesn’t much care for other people. She has this realization one morning and spontaneously books an Airbnb for her, husband Clay (Ethan Hawke), and their kids Archie and Rose in Point Comfort, Long Island. Bucolic rewards elude them, however. First, the wifi goes out, then an oil tanker runs aground on the beach. That same night, George Scott (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la) knock at the cabin on the door. George claims he’s the homeowner who rented to Amanda, and that they decided to return there from the city due to a massive blackout. Amanda (did we mention she doesn’t like people?) isn’t so sure.
“Critical” Analysis: Where are we on the apocalypse as entertainment? Conventional wisdom suggests implausibility leads to greater popularity, hence the endurance of things like The Last of Us (end times fungus), The Walking Dead (or any other zombie property), or Nope (alien invasions). With these sorts of movies, the end of mankind is fun because these scenarios are … less than probable.
It’s when studios start presenting End Times situations that aren’t all that far-fetched that anxiety overwhelms morbid curiosity. This “anxious” category is where Sam Esmail’s Leave the World Behind (not so) comfortably resides.
The movie’s three acts are explicitly delineated (“The House,” “The Curve,” etc.), taking us from the Sanfords’ initial obliviousness and (Amanda’s) suspicion of the Scotts to dawning awareness and finally, something approaching acceptance. For at least a couple of characters, anyway.
Esmail doesn’t really want us to sympathize with most of his characters. The Sanfords are either outright hostile (Amanda’s racism isn’t even remotely subtle) or clueless (Clay freely admits he’s helpless without a phone or GPS). Their reliance on technology is the one bond that unites the entire family, right down to young Rose’s constant complaints that she isn’t able to watch the series finale of Friends.
This is why I always tell my kids to download shit to their devices. I’m not paying for airplane wifi.
Anyway, Esmail initially uses slow tracking shots and looping overhead angles to convey a sense of tranquility, but the arrival of the Scotts puts an end to that. Tensions do ease somewhat as it becomes apparent something catastrophic is happening and the Sanfords and Scotts need to collectively get it together.
Leave’s languorous pace doesn’t project much in the way of urgency, despite how much Max Quayle’s overly melodramatic score tries to change that. It’s clear from Amanda and George dancing in front of the latter’s massive LP collection, or Clay and Ruth lazily vaping by the pool, that the end of the world hits different for the upper class. Even Kevin Bacon’s survivalist character, who faces off against George and Clay in one of the few tense scenes, lives in a lovely Craftsman home on what has to be at least two acres.
Unlike Knock at the Cabin, there’s nothing “Biblically” apocalyptic about what’s happening. Snippets of AM radio broadcasts and rapidly disappearing iPhone news alerts hint at a cyberattack followed by rogue armed forces. For all that, there are relatively few disaster money shots, beached tanker aside. That said, there’s something viscerally satisfying about watching a fleet of Teslas mindlessly crashing into each other.
Maybe Esmail figured the world needed a movie about privileged folks encountering weird phenomena and growing increasingly restive rather than a “you are there” telling of the collapse of society. Maybe he figured we’d seen enough of the former, and Netflix audiences would like a more pastoral perspective of the cataclysm, and it looks like he was right: Leave the World Behind is currently the No. 1 movie on the streaming network. But with its lack of action and meandering pace, I think that says more about our tastes than his.
Leave the World Behind is now streaming on Netflix.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
