Leave The World Behind - A Review

I recently treated myself to the Netflix movie, "Leave The World Behind," featuring an all-star cast of Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Kevin Bacon, and Mahershala Ali. It's a near-future apocalypse, and so crosses over into the area of science fiction.

It was really, really good!

The movie admittedly starts slow. Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) surprises her NYC family with a spur-of-the-moment getaway weekend to a house being rented out in Long Island. Her husband, Clay (Ethan Hawke), is unenthusiastic about the idea, but goes along with it. Naturally, they take along their two children, Archie (Charlie Evans) and Rose (Farrah McKenzie).

The first sign of trouble comes when Rose can't stream her favorite show, which happens to be "Friends." But otherwise, things seem fine - at first. The house is a gorgeous mansion, with a beautiful interior, spacious yard, and swimming pool. But then something really odd happens. They visit the beach, and while there, Rose notices an oil tanker off in the distance which seems to be headed towards them. It's a long way off, and nobody thinks anything of it. But moments later, it gets closer to the shoreline - a LOT closer. Realizing it's headed straight towards them, Amanda, Clay, Archie, and Rose quickly abandon their plot in the sand and make a run for it. The oil tanker slams into the shoreline, beaching itself.

Other strange occurrences take place. The Internet goes completely dark, and stays that way. Cell phone signals become non-existent. In the back yard, deer mysteriously appear in large numbers. But the Sandfords pass this off as just an odd set of coincidences which will soon pass.

Then, late in the evening, a knock comes at the side door.

They answer it, and standing there are two very well dressed black people, a man and a teenaged girl. The man introduces himself as George "G.H." Scott, and the girl as his daughter, Ruth.

They say that the place is their house, and they've come back after seeing some trouble due to the communications outage, and that there was a blackout in the city.

What follows is one of the most interesting depictions of trust and racially-charged discomfort I've ever seen. Amanda is immediately distrustful. Clay is far more progressive and tries to walk an uneasy tightrope between the Scotts (whom he believes actually own the place) and his wife (who clearly doesn't). The tension is deliciously thick.

And yet, in spite of the tug-of-war between fear and mistrust, the Sandfords and Scots find a few commonalities to cling to, and they need it.

The outages do not resolve. As the communications blackout continues, it becomes clearer and clearer that something very serious is going on in the world around them. Then, from out of nowhere, ear-splitting noise shakes the ground and breaks glass.

G.H. visits a neighbor and finds the house ransacked. In the back yard, facing the sea, he discovers dead bodies strewn along the shore, and the wreckage of a plane. As he recovers from the shock, another plane crashes into the shoreline dangerously close to him. He survives only by dashing into the house and bracing himself against the door.

Clay decides to go into the nearby town to find a newspaper or ask the locals what's going on. But bereft of a GPS, he gets lost. He encounters a screaming woman who flags him down, clearly asking for help. But she speaks no English. As she babbles on in Spanish, he realizes that he can do very little to help her. Eventually, he does an incredibly hard and selfish thing and drives away, leaving the frantic woman panic-stricken. This deeply disturbs him, and the guilt hangs heavy on his conscience, but he doesn't know what else to do. Not long afterward, he spots a drone high in the air. The drone releases leaflets all over the road, covering his car. He has no idea what the leaflets mean. Eventually, and with some difficulty, he manages to make his way back to the house.

When Clay and G.H. arrive back, they report their odd findings. G.H. tried using his neighbor's satellite link-up to find any signals, but found none. That could only mean one thing - no active satellites. Clay, for his part, provides one of the leaflets which got stuck under the car's windshield. It's written in Arabic, so they don't know what it says. But Clay's son, Archie, immediately recognizes the symbol on the front as meaning "Death to America." He knows this because it's featured in a favorite video game of his.

Other weird things happen. The wildlife continues to behave oddly. Deer herds reappear. A flock of flamingos swarm to the backyard pool. The ear-splitting noise happens yet again.

Clay and Amanda finally decide to drive into the city they discover that the highway is blocked with wrecked cars. Upon inspection, they see the cars are all white, and all Teslas. As they investigate further, Amanda realizes that these cars were wrecked because they all have auto-drive capabilities, and the cars are being deliberately crahsed! Panicked, she runs back to the car and tells everyone to get back inside. She drives them off just as several more white Teslas speed right toward them. They avoid the rogue self-driving cars, but then have nowhere else to go except back to the Scott's house.

The movie's interplay between the characters is what makes it great. There is suspense, there is emotion, there is mistrust, and there is mystery. It's probably what earned the movie such high-reviews. It got a 76% fresh tomato rating on rottentomatoes.com. Yet the audience score was incredibly low. Only a 34% rating. If I could cite one reason for the disparity, it comes from a disgusting scene after Archie has taken sick. He says the following morning that he feels fine. Yet his teeth begin falling out. It's a disgusting scene and even I contemplated abandoning the movie right then and there, even though I was enjoying it immensely up to that point. 

With no hospital to get to, Clay and G.H. go to the only source of medicine they can think of - another neighbor named Danny (Kevin Bacon). This neighbor is a conspiracy theorist who is always planning for the apocalypse, so they figure he's well prepared. They are correct, but Danny has no intention of giving away the stores he's prepared. He meets them armed with a shotgun, and eventually insists that they leave. A confrontation develops with G.H. and Danny each drawing guns on each other while a frantic Clay tries desperately to diffuse the situation.

The film has a surprise ending - which I will not describe because I don't want to spoil it. Suffice it to say that, although it is anti-climactic, it is nevertheless satisfying. It doesn't end the story where it naturally feels it should end, but it does end in a way that lets you know what the ending will likely be, and that everyone will be okay.

This movie might not win an Oscar. Hell, it might not even get a nomination. But it features some of the most amazing acting I've ever seen out of Ethan Hawke. (With the exception of Hamlet, Hawke has never been in a movie I disliked.) It deserves recognition for amazing writing, storytelling and suspense.

Alas, I don't think it will get the accolades it deserves.

Eric

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