My pet peeve (one of them) about the film-critic community is when other critics get snobbish about actors who dare to sit in the director’s chair for the first time, and then publicly trash these freshman attempts, due to the old crabs-in-a-bucket “Look at him attempting to elevate his position—let’s pull him back down” routine.
You gotta laugh at yourself sometimes. Why? Because, in a nutshell, “Leave the World Behind” starts off kinda … poorly? And then it gets really good!
The non-zombie apocalypse arrives via the premise of China pulling a cyber-warfare attack on America. What makes it so realistically scary and believable is that no one knows exactly what to expect—the creeping clues make it pretty much a modern-day version of Hitchcock’s 1963 thriller-horror hit, “The Birds,” with touches of “The Twilight Zone” (the script was based on Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel). The dark soundtrack, just shy of full-on horror, conveys the eerie dread of knowing something bizarre is happening, but we don’t know or understand what.
What Will the End of the World Look Like?
Advertising analyst Amanda Sandford (Ms. Roberts), a bitter, cynical, and self-admitted misanthrope, wakes up one day and decides she needs a vacation. She, her English professor hubby Clay (Mr. Hawke), girl-crazy teen son Archie (Charlie Evans), and “Friends” sitcom-obsessed pre-teen daughter Rose (Farrah Mackenzie) will ditch their Park Slope, Brooklyn brownstone, and head out to the country for a quickie vacation. The “country” is a hop, skip, and a jump away in the “sleepy hamlet” of Point Comfort on Long Island—an Airbnb at a luxurious, if starkly modern home, not far from the beach.
In the middle of the night, they hear a knock at the door. There’s a sophisticated, tuxedo-and-bowtie-wearing African-American man named G.H. Scott (Mahershala Ali) along with his ball-gown-wearing daughter, Ruth Scott (Myha’la Herrold).
Well, strange things are afoot: New York City, which can be glimpsed on the horizon, is in a blackout. Every television station is playing the emergency broadcast signal, the WiFi is down, and phones are out.
Amiable Clay is open to allowing the Scotts to crash their vacation, after G.H. offers to reimburse them $1,000 off their vacation rental, but highly hysterical Amanda wants to no part of it. However, after some barbed, verbal-fencing between Amanda and Ruth (it’s hate at first sight between these two) the families achieve an uneasy truce.
It becomes increasingly clear to all involved that there really is some weirdness happening out there. All manner of vehicular navigational GPS—boats, planes, and cars—have gone haywire. Animals are exhibiting strange behavior, and earsplitting noises start rending the atmosphere intermittently. But because the internet is down, no one can figure out what any of these bizarre phenomena mean.
What to Do?
The destabilization of the world is imminent. Director Esmail shows us examples of how the loss of governmental control would affect us. Most movies about the end of the world reveal that humanity, in fight-or-flight mode, quickly devolves to teeth-baring, showing its true colors, and exposing greed, terror, territoriality, racism, anti-Semitism, and so on, or, in the case of Amanda’s daughter Rosie, desperately clinging to the only source of warm fuzziness she knows: her deep adoration of TV show “Friends” and her obsessive (and comical) need to see the final episode.
In the absence of any clear information, and as the world implodes, the apocalypse morphs into each character’s deepest fears. Clay panics when he goes for help, and ends up in a situation which exposes that he’s not the kind-hearted liberal he thought he was.
Amanda is revealed as an old-fashioned racist; her knee-jerk anger offset by the younger Ruth’s precocious Gen-Z ability to accurately pinpoint all the issues in play, and fearlessly call her out on it. Ms. Roberts and Ms. Myha’la have great actor-chemistry. However, “Leave the World Behind” is Mr. Ali’s movie.
G.H. was initially a Denzel Washington role. Mr. Ali brings Washingtonian gravitas, but with more empathy and warmth. G.H.’s love for his daughter is such that it’s clear this man will put his life on the line in an attempt to keep all involved safe in the face of the apocalypse.
Apocalyptically, Where Are We Right Now?
Well, what have we got? We’ve got a societal split. We have, on the one hand, the mask-wearing (masks prevents COVID!) atheist vegans disputing with the meat-eating, Ivermectin-touting (Ivermectin cures COVID!) Joe Rogan, who interviews spiritual teachers on his podcast.It’s becoming increasing clear that the Old Testament-like, fire-and-brimstone, Mad Max apocalypse (the one with steroidal muscle-cars tearing around, looking for gas) has revealed itself instead to be the you-hurt-my-feelings-with-microaggressions, wimp-pocalypse. Aesthetically, I’m very disappointed. We got a crappy deal. I liked the cooler, more dangerous muscle-car version better.
To Bunker or Not to Bunker
Given the current Palestine-pocalypse, a tale of two families dealing with misinformation and questions of who is responsible for the attack, feels highly apropos. The dichotomy in “Leave the World Behind” is a white, liberal family versus an (ostensibly) conservative black family (which is interesting, considering the Obamas produced it).
