Directed By Sam Esmail

Starring – Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke

The Plot – Amanda (Roberts) and Clay’s (Hawke) aspirational vacation with their teenage children is interrupted by the arrival of a middle aged couple (Ali, Myha’la Herrold) who own the holiday home and who have fled an unprecedented blackout in the city. When the internet, television and radio stop working, as does the landline, they have no way of finding out what is happening. As strange sonic booms shatter the peace of the countryside, and animals start to migrate in strange ways, the physical and mental health of the families begins to disintegrate, as the issues of race clash and become distractions to the more alarming things are happening all around them.

Rated R for adult language, some sexual content, drug use and brief bloody imagery

(3) Leave The World Behind | Official Trailer | Netflix – YouTube

POSITIVES

Like a Drew Goddard film, “Leave the World Behind” begins initially as one thing, before transitioning as another. On the surface, it’s an end of the world thriller, full of strange happenings and unnerving atmospheric range that constantly unnerves the audience, but deep below it’s a compelling social commentary about the effects of technological addiction, with devices used to bring us closer in theory, ultimately driving us further away in reality. This is seen through two culturally diverse families, who when forced to endure time mutually spent under one roof, without those technological crutches, forces them to confront some subconscious psychologies of prejudice that makes for one scintillating engagement, with the backdrop of this apocalypse only further driving the urgency in their already tensely claustrophobic conflict. In tow, the script supplants a meaningful message for humanity that emphatically speaks volumes to the idea of united we stand, individually we fall, but never in ways that serve as spoilers to the overall execution of the conflict, instead solidifying this point as early as the film’s opening act, where the respective families working together helps to solve momentary mysteries that would otherwise feel vague, with each side only receiving half of the whole story of this unforeseen force that is forcefully taking command. As expected, Esmail commands the attention of his audience throughout a 130 minute engagement with many compelling focal points at the forefront of the narrative, but beyond that directs the hell out of the engagement with stylistic impulses that cement one seductively transfixing presentation that continuously feeds into the aforementioned atmosphere. Meaningfully complex framing, abrupt close-ups, and smoothly studying camera movements are just a few of Sam’s alluring qualities, and when combined with the instrumental versatility of Mac Quayle’s genre-shifting score, a dark humor of tonal consistency and the sound department’s echoing consciousness into the many things that go bump in the night, this psychological thriller casually drifts into horror territory, without the need to get its hands dirty with gruesome visuals or brutality of any kind. Esmail is joined in his commitment to craft with a highly talented and committed ensemble led feverishly by Roberts and Ali, who each command the screen with such irresisible portrayals. For Roberts, there is an air of preconceived prejudice to her introverted character that frequently serves as the fuel that lights the fire to so many of these internal conflicts, and when combined with the fiercely fun dialogue that Esmail casually expands upon from the novel of the same name, gifts Julia several instances of combustible ferocity that, while morally conflicting, brings out the most in her role as a protector, which is undeniable. As for Ali, his initial ambiguity as a stranger to Roberts’ family in the middle of the night, gives way to the smoothly seductive layer of chemistry that we’ve come to expect from him, but in tow with some heavy dramatic lifting that allows him to take over the film’s third act climax. Lastly, as a literary adaptation, the film and its script has a surprising amount of deviation from its predecessor that helps to make this an unfamiliar experience, particularly with an expanding ending that helps to ease the underwhelming emphasis of the novel’s abrupt conclusion. While the ending here will still create some problems for moviegoers expecting a particular pay-off, the climax for me satisfied in ways that are not only responsible for the magnitude of the conflict, but also poetic as a last second irony to not being entirely upfront with your children.

NEGATIVES

While I found myself clearly more invested to the conflicting dynamics between these two families, instead of this overarching armageddon that isolates them, I can’t help but feel this inescapable disappointment with the time and commitment paid to the latter, especially with the audience never fully grasping the extent of the who or where it came from. There are certainly theories, as one star-studded cameo during the third act forcefully conveys, but its lack of materializing towards anything that feels concrete in inception, motivation or execution by this mysterious antagonist inscribes an internal disconnect that kept me from fully interpreting its capabilities, in turn never bringing along the elements of apocalyptic thriller, which could work for or against someone’s experience. Beyond the plaguing ambiguity of the conflict, I can also say that the pacing strains slightly during the opening act, where it takes a little longer than expected to get our conflict off and moving. I do appreciate that the film takes ample time towards getting to know our protagonists, especially since their evolutions contrast so noticeably from where they began, but it does lead towards a couple of scatterbrained scenes that could easily be trimmed for both time and momentum in the consistency of the pacing, which with a nearly two-and-a-half hour run time has a difficulty in maintaining the urgency of the narrative.

OVERALL
“Leave the World Behind” is an unconventional kind of doomsday thriller that instead of zeroing in on the conflict, emphasizes the essence of humanity by instead focusing on its culturally divided characters, leading to several provocative discussions between them. Sam Esmail constructs a sleekly stylistic engagement that constantly eats at the uneasiness of its audience, and despite some momentary lapses in the consistency of his pacing, appraises a star-studded collision course of inevitability to a world with so many reflective parallels in prejudice.

My Grade: 8/10 or B+