******SUSPICIOUS SPOILERS!******

I have to admit, I took the bait on this one. 

Last month, I saw an interesting online trailer for Netflix’s “Leave the World Behind” (2023), based on a book by Rumaan Alam, who cowrote the screenplay with director Sam Esmail.  Starring Oscar winners Julia Roberts (“Erin Brockovich”) and Mahershala Ali (“Moonlight”), along with Ethan Hawke (“Gattaca,” “Daybreakers”), the trailer promised a story of survival after a devastating cyberattack hits the US. As someone to whom wi-fi signal is my livelihood, I thought this 2 hour and 20 minute film might be worth a look. 

Well, I was wrong. 

“Leave the World Behind.”

Misanthropic New Yorker (Julia Roberts) wakes her husband Clay (Ethan Hawke) up to the annoying sounds of packing, since she quietly booked an impromptu family vacation (without asking anyone) at a luxurious rental beach house for the weekend.  A groggy Clay agrees, and they gather their kids, teenage son Archie (Charlie Evans) and kid sister Rose (Farrah Mackenzie), who’d much rather stay home and play with their phones and tablets, but sure mom…whatever. 

Note:  Strange behavior for a misanthrope to book a vacation at a public beach so that she and her family can spend time with…more people.  This is the first of many odd choices made by characters in this weird little movie. 

En route, we hear the usual 21st century whining from kids Archie and Rose, who are too absorbed in their phones and tablets to give a real damn about a beach weekend with the family.  Rose, in particular, is deep into the sitcom “Friends”(1994-2004), and has made it to the final episode, when the wi-fi signal in the car cuts out—leaving poor Rose unable to learn the fates of Ross, Rachel, Joey, Chandler and Phoebe. Shortly after, the family arrives at their surprisingly luxurious rental house, with Clay making a beeline for a locked liquor cabinet, while the kids discover the joys of the backyard swimming pool. Amanda makes a grocery run, as the family settles in. At the store, Amanda sees a gruff-looking stranger (Kevin Bacon) packing his car full of bottled water and other emergency supplies. She makes a mental note of it, but doesn’t mention it to anyone else, of course (a pattern we see throughout the movie—no one communicates with anyone).

Note: It’s vaguely implied that tweenage Rose might be on the autism spectrum, but it’s never made clear. Her anxiety over learning how “Friends” ended takes on an unwitting tragic aspect in the wake of “Friends” costar Matthew Perry’s untimely death last year, at age 54.  Also of note, Julia Roberts and Kevin Bacon were once costars in the 1990 Joel Schumacher afterlife thriller “Flatliners,” which I remember seeing theatrically in original release. It’s one of Schumacher’s better films. Julia Roberts was the ‘It Girl’  of the early 1990s.

As the family relaxes on the beach, Rose spots a large freighter, the White Lion, perilously closing in on the shoreline.  At first, everyone assumes it’s stopping, until it doesn’t. Still plowing at full speed towards the beach, the tourists hurriedly gather their belongings and run as quickly as possible, as the behemoth vessel runs aground—displacing tons of sand as it carves its own berth.  With the internet still down everywhere, no one is able to get information on how and why the massive vessel made what appeared to be a suicide run at the beach. 

Note: Okay, I’m not a sailor, but I do know that that most ships have manual navigation overrides in order to make emergency course corrections. Even if satellite navigation and internet were completely knocked out, wouldn’t someone—anyone—on the bridge of the White Lion do their best to steer the hell away from the shore…?

Hightailing it back to the rental house, no one is apparently too shaken by what happened at the beach, though Rose is still upset she’s unable to watch the finale of “Friends.” As the kids are tucked into bed, Amanda and Clay notice what appears to be a man lurking outside their doorway. Grabbing a piece of art as a potential bludgeon, Clay cautiously opens the door to a tuxedoed Black man named G.H. Scott (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’ha Herrold), who claim they own the house currently occupied by the vacationing Sandfords.  While Clay accepts that G.H. and Ruth are who they claim to be, Amanda’s distrusting nature—and implicit racism—become obstacles, as she’s uncomfortable with these two strangers sleeping in the same house with her family.  

Claiming his bad knee forced him to return home for the weekend, G.H. amicably agrees to spend the night in the basement, giving the Sandfords a half-refund on their rental.  Amanda reluctantly agrees, while Clay is perfectly okay with the arrangement.  Down in the large, spacious basement bedroom—which looks more like a luxury suite—Ruth is not exactly pleased at the prospect of sharing their home with these strangers. G.H. does his best to calm his daughter down, while also warning of some mysterious larger happening going on around them…which is never well-articulated until the end of this frustrating film. 

Note: Right away, G.H. lies about having a ‘bad knee,’ and his wife being away in Rome (later, he assumes she’s probably dead, for some reason…?).  Meanwhile, Clay and Amanda don’t bother to mention the giant freighter that ran aground at the beach and nearly killed everyone! The movie’s characters fail to simply talk to each other for reasons that are never made clear.  At first, I assumed it was racism, particularly with the ill-tempered Amanda, but even after the characters reach a détente of sorts, they still lie and keep secrets from each other.  

The next morning, the two families uneasily cohabitate, as Rose is still single-mindedly obsessed with not being able to watch the finale of “Friends,” while Archie skeevishly takes clandestine photos of Ruth as she sunbathes in a bikini by the pool. The headstrong Ruth and suspicious Amanda clash at every turn, as C.H. does his best to reign his daughter in. Meanwhile, in true M. Night Shyamalan-fashion, deer begin to mysteriously gather in the yard, because wi-fi failure always brings animals and humans together for a visit, right?

Note: Later in the movie, we see Archie pleasuring himself in bed to the photos he secretly took of Ruth sunbathing by the poolside.  Honestly, I really didn’t need to see this, thank you very much, movie… 

Clay decides to escape the domestic drama and drive to the store to buy a newspaper in order to find out what’s going in; as we all did back in the Dark Ages before the internet.  As he gets lost along a sprawling highway, Clay sees an Hispanic woman in distress.  He slows down to help her at first, only to be frustrated that she doesn’t speak English, and he callously abandons her!  As he speeds off from the crying woman, he then sees a red swarm of some kind closing in behind him—the ‘swarm’ turns out to be a mass of red leaflets in Arabic raining down on the highway…

Note: Even the seemingly openminded and progressive Clay turns out to be every bit as racist and intolerant as his wife. Proof that nobody in the movie is worth rooting for, let alone empathizing with. The worst part is that we spend two hours and twenty minutes with this deeply unpleasant group of people. By this point, I was rooting for the apocalypse. 

Meanwhile, G.H. decides to make a reconnaissance of his own by investigating a neighbor’s house near the beach, where he sees the wreckage of a crashed airliner, along with the corpses of passengers and flight crew scattered ashore.  As he stares aghast at the grisly sight, another airplane nosedives for the shore right towards the very spot where he’s standing, of course.  G.H. does a “North by Northwest” and jumps into water to avoid the crashing airliner.  Naturally, when he returns to the house soaking wet, he doesn’t immediately announce to everyone that he just saw two plane crashes, as any other human being would.

Note: Even if the characters don’t trust each other, there is no reason for them not to be so secretive about the grounded freighter and the crashed airplanes.  It’s not as if this is top-secret information.  It’s implied that wealthy yet opaque G.H. has high-end contacts and access to sensitive information, but nothing of what he or the Sandfords see is classified. I just don’t get the lack of transparency, given the crisis at hand. It’s counterintuitive to how humans act in a crisis; disaster eyewitnesses, particularly Americans, tend to gush information to anyone within earshot, not tuck it away.

Archie then takes Rose on a walk through the nearby woods, to see what those creepy, lurking deer are all about.  Once there, they find an empty shed with strong ‘serial-killer-has-been-here’ vibes to it.  Upon leaving, Archie is bitten by a tick, which he’s almost oblivious to, until pointed out by Rose.  Back at the house, Amanda confronts G.H. and he confides in her about the crashed planes (talk about burying the lede), and he says that some of his “powerful clients” know of top-secret goings-on around the world. He then speculates that communications satellites have probably been disabled, since they’re linked to computers on the ground, which accounts for the nationwide wi-fi outages.  

Note: The movie shows several random shots of outer space, including a shot of the US flag left on the moon by the Apollo astronauts.  A shot of a failing communications satellite shows the satellite hovering in much too low of an Earth orbit. Most communications satellites are in a geosynchronous orbit, some 22,000 miles/35,400 km above the Earth; from that position, the Earth would be roughly the size of a basketball.

Before G.H. can continue, he and Amanda are forced to cup their ears as the first of several loud, painfully-shrieking sounds is heard—and felt. Less of a klaxon, and more of a sonic attack.  After it ends, Amanda regains her composure and tells G.H. about the scruffy man at the store stockpiling supplies. G.H. tells her that was probably a local contractor named Danny, who worked on his house, and who’s something of a survivalist.  Clay finally returns home with one of the red leaflets pulled from his car’s windshield wiper.  Archie takes it and shows a surprising linguistic acumen accrued from online video-gaming; the leaflet is in Arabic, and says “Death to America” on one side. 

Tired and frustrated, the Sandfords decide to leave, despite G.H’s warnings.  Amanda says they’ll head for her sister’s home in New Jersey.  Unfortunately, the Sandfords’ way out is blocked by a massive traffic jam caused by hacked self-driving Teslas piling up on the only roads out of town.  With no choice, the Sandfords return to the Scott’s home and—in a reversal of their initial introduction—ask to stay the night, which Ruth is opposed to, noting how she and her dad are forced to sleep in the basement of their own home for a second night because of a visiting white family. 

Note: Ruth is not wrong either, but sadly, the movie doesn’t explore her perspective too deeply. Also of note, the movie isn’t exactly great PR for Teslas, either. As of this writing (mid-January of 2024), extreme cold around the United States is currently causing long lines at charging stations as electric cars wait hours to recharge their rapidly depleting batteries. Yikes!

That night, a heavy rain begins (titled “The Flood” in a series of titled act breaks). The Scotts and the Sandfords get to know each other a little better as Clay sits outside in the pool cabana with Ruth as they share a doobie.  Ruth then asks professor Clay if he’s ever slept with one of his students. Startled by her frankness, Clay denies any wrongdoing. The intimate Q&A is rudely interrupted by a flock of flamingoes who suddenly decide to have an impromptu pool party in the rain, of course (Right? That always happens when my wi-fi goes out…).

Note: For those who care (and it’s really not important), the five act breaks of the movie are pretentiously titled “The House,” “The Curve,” “The Noise,” “The Flood” and “The End.” The movie’s buildup is far greater than the sum of its parts.

Meanwhile, G.H. finds Amanda sifting though his huge collection of LPs, as the two begin to loosen up. Incongruously, Amanda picks one of Ruth’s R&B albums, and plays “Too Close” by Next.  She and G.H. then begin to dance, and even embrace, as the angry woman finds comfort in the arms of a man she refused to trust earlier. Their dance is interrupted by “The Noise” once again, as they both clutch their ears in pain. The noise subsides, but the power goes out, and candles are lit.  

Note: This thaw between G.H. and Amanda is one of the few scenes of vague interest for me, mainly because these two Oscar-winning actors do their best to make it work, and because it’s one of the few scenes where Amanda seems to finally get the message that they’re all in this thing together.  What I didn’t like about it is that it immediately implies they have some sort of attraction to each other, as if to counter the admittedly creepy poolside flirtation between Clay and Ruth. Contrary to movies and TV, men and women can platonically enjoy each others’ company without sex getting in the way.  

After “The Noise” subsides once again, the Sandford family decide to sleep in one bed for safety. Worried TV-addict Rose notices the nonstop rain and paraphrases a creaky old joke she once heard on an episode of “The West Wing,” where God attempts to save a drowning man by sending him a lifejacket, a boat, etc.  As the family piles into bed together, Amanda notices that teenage Archie is running a fever, but seems otherwise okay. 

Note: Yeah, nice way to make the entire family sick if Archie had something serious (which he does, of course). This is exactly how global pandemics begin…

The next morning, Archie notices that his teeth are falling out!  Archie then mentions that bloody tick bite he experienced when he and Rose were walking into the woods together (oh yeah…that).  G.H. then remembers that gruff contractor Danny (the man Amanda ran into at the grocery store earlier) is a survivalist who routinely stockpiles food, medicine, and other supplies.  Meanwhile, Amanda realizes that daughter Rose has chosen that particular morning to go wandering off.  After an exhaustive and fruitless search for Rose, it’s hoped that Danny might have medicine for Archie, so G.H. and Clay take the boy to Danny’s place, while Ruth and Amanda continue the search for Rose…

Note: To those wondering exactly why teenaged Danny’s teeth are suddenly falling out?  It’s never conclusively explained, so, once again, don’t hold your breath…

Turns out survivalist Danny isn’t the most affable guy in the neighborhood, as he greets desperate city slickers G.H. and Clay with a cocked shotgun in his arms.  The intransigent Danny tells the two men how the world works now; it’s every man for himself, something survivalists like him had been warning all of us about for years. Before eventually handing over some nonspecific medicine to a teary-eyed, begging Clay, Danny pauses to monologue a stream of conspiracy theories, including microwave transmissions, that seems to connect the random events happening throughout the movie (they really don’t, if you pause to think about them with a clear head).  With medicine in hand and their dignity left at Danny’s doorstep, Clay and G.H. leave…

Note: I’m not sure what the book/movie’s ‘message’ here is exactly; that conspiracy cooks were right all along?  That maybe we should all be stockpiling supplies for a doomsday that may never come so we can each try to be the last one to exit a post-apocalyptic nightmare? If the end really is coming, and it promises to be a miserable struggle just to stay alive, I’d hope to go in the first wave.  Like Clay, I have the survival instincts of a pampered toddler, and would prefer not to see what daily fresh hells a post-apocalypse world might bring. Maybe if I were 25 and not 57, who knows…

The search for Rose continues, as Amanda and Ruth retrace the kids’ path through the woods until they find the serial killer-lair/shed, and the tensions between the two women continue to simmer as they exit the empty shed and look towards the Manhattan skyline—which is sprouting with devastating mushroom clouds. The two women wordlessly realize that America is falling under a massive, coordinated attack (which still doesn’t explain bird navigation going haywire, but oh well…).

Note: Perhaps if the movie had opened with the vacationing Sandfords and the Scotts meeting at the house just as New York City was being nuked, we’d have something resembling an actual survival story, instead of this long, boring, movie-like substance.

Meanwhile, the object of the search, Rose, has wandered through the woods over to a seemingly abandoned upscale home, where she lets herself in and raids the fridge—feasting on an unhealthy buffet of junk food and cereal, before going downstairs to a massive, luxurious bomb shelter that’s at least five times the size of my first apartment.  Once there, she discovers a pantry full of canned foods and water, as well as nice furniture positioned in front of an entertainment center.  She casually turns on the TV, and a government message confirms that high levels of radioactivity are being recorded in all major cities across the United States, and that a rogue military faction is responsible. Unconcerned with the end of civilization, Rose discovers that the owners of this bomb shelter had the foresight to stockpile a huge cache of DVDs, including the complete box set of “Friends.”  Finally able to learn the fates of Rachel, Ross, Chandler, Joey and Phoebe, she pops in the disc for the series’ final episode and enjoys.

The End

(or should it be “The End”?)

Note: I’m not even kidding—that’s how it ends.  God is in his heaven and all is right with the world because little Rose finally gets to see how a 30-year old TV show concluded.  I do agree with the movie on one point; I prefer owning music and movies on physical media over streaming and digital downloads.  Not because of any pending apocalypse (which would also wipe out the electricity with which to play them), but because of the capricious nature of streaming services; which can pull your favorite movie, album or TV show without a second thought.  Ironic that this message comes to us via a Netflix movie, but okay…

Summing It Up

“Leave the World Behind” feels like a misguided cross between M. Night Shyamalan’s godawful “The Happening” (2008) and 2004’s wildly overrated “Crash” (which stole its Best Picture Oscar from other more deserving movies). The story, as it is, begins effectively, with a family on vacation who experience a devastating cyberattack that knocks out all electronic connectivity everywhere.  Boats run aground, planes fall out of the sky.  And for some unexplained reason, this cyberattack also screws up migration patterns of birds and animals.  One assumes something will cohesively tie it all together, but don’t hold your breath. Things just…happen.

The distrust between the the privileged Sandford family cohabitating with the enigmatic Scotts is needlessly inflamed by both parties holding back information from each other, for reasons that just don’t fly in reality. If anything, Americans often give too much information to each other, rather than too little. The reasons for the Sandfords and Scotts being so secretive and distrusting with each other are never explained or explored, beyond an implicit racism that is touched upon, yet repeatedly dismissed, since the movie lacks the courage to address the issue head-on, as dad G.H. (Mahershala Ali) repeatedly admonishes daughter Ruth (Myha’ha Herrold) whenever she brings it up.

Mother Amanda (Julia Roberts) is an unlovable shrew, largely because the script says so, and not for any reasons that’d make that choice a compelling idea. G.H. is an enigma who mysteriously drops half-truths and omits information because, er, reasons, I guess…?  Kevin Bacon’s survivalist character “Danny” is set up at the beginning of the movie to be more important than he ultimately turns out. Instead of offering the contentious right-wing perspective of this group, Danny just grudgingly spouts a hodgepodge of half-baked ideas from assorted conspiracy podcasts. There are no arcs, no redemptions, no point.

Yes, the performances of “Leave the World Behind” are solid—which is to be expected from its Oscar-heavy cast—but they only go to support a lot of obtuse, glacially-paced hugger mugger that ends where it should’ve began.  As it is, “Leave the World Behind” is a long, boring collection of moments and ideas that are never well explored and ultimately go nowhere.  Hell, I’m no fan of “Friends,” but even I would’ve preferred seeing that series’ finale over this dull, pretentious claptrap. 

Maybe Rose was onto something…

Where to Watch

“Leave the World Behind” is currently available to stream only on Netflix. Maybe it’ll come to an apocalypse-ready DVD someday…