Leave the World Behind (2023) was released to Netflix on December 8th and is directed by Sam Esmail. It stars Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Myha’la, and Kevin Bacon. After renting a secluded house for a weekend getaway, a family of four receives more than they bargained for when the owner of the house along with his teenage daughter arrive asking for refuge. All technology including phones, internet, and television are seemingly disabled, leaving no contact with the outside world. As they begin to explore their surroundings, they begin to realize that whatever is going on may be more devastating than they initially realized. As each member of the group begins to manifest theories about what may be going on, tension and distrust slowly begin to rise. The group is forced to discover ways in which to work together as their situation develops from bad to worse. Although Leave the World Behind succeeds in sustaining an expert level of mystery and tension throughout its runtime, it doesn’t necessarily lead to a resolution that I felt was particularly interesting.

The performances here are pretty strong across the board excluding (unfortunately) the younger actors. Julia Roberts plays a sort of overbearing mom, some might say “Karen.”  She’s the most distrustful of the group and is constantly escalating tense situations. On the other hand, Ethan Hawke plays the overly aloof father. He isn’t worried when he should be and trivializes just about every strange event. His character is a complete juxtaposition of Roberts’ character. That being said, they are equally frustrating in the sense that neither has any middle ground. I suppose this helped in making the relationship feel more authentic in a sense. They fill in each other’s gaps. Mahershala Ali is great here too, but again the character is somewhat frustrating in the sense that he comes off as extremely secretive throughout the majority of the runtime, needlessly adding to the tension between the group. Myha’la is likewise effective here, but once again her character is frustrating. The character is similar to Roberts’ character, which often puts the two at odds. They distrust for similar reasons and this distrust only fosters more of it. You are just begging these two to find common ground because we as the audience see that they have more in common than they realize. The teenage son of Hawke and Roberts played by Charlie Evans is a particularly annoying character. He is consistently mean to his little sister and spends most of his time in the film creeping on Myha’la’s character. As well as being particularly unlikeable, he’s just not generally well-written. This is somewhat similar to his sister, played by Farrah Mackenzie. She is likewise not very well-written, but at least succeeds in being somewhat likable. On top of all this, Kevin Bacon makes a fun appearance as a sort of doomsday prepper character. It feels like perfect casting that I never would have thought of.

Although none of the characters are particularly likable, that feels to be the intention here. Especially once the film starts diving deeper into its themes. As events in the story become particularly dire, the characters begin to reflect on the fact that they might be deserving of what’s coming. This speaks not only to these characters, but the idea of American exceptionalism in general. We constantly see ourselves as the moral police of the world when in fact we may be the most morally corrupt of them all. It’s the idea that it’s not only these characters that deserve punishment, but our collective idea of superiority in general. 

SPOILER ALERT!! The daughter character throughout the film is obsessed with finally seeing the final episode of the TV show F.R.I.E.N.D.S. (1994-2004) but can’t stream it because of the blackout. She is so obsessed with it, she doesn’t once seem to acknowledge the horrible situation she finds herself in. When the climactic event of the film occurs (bombs being dropped), we find the character inside the house discovering that it holds every season of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. on DVD. As the world and her family are seemingly being annihilated outside, she is completely focused on the last episode, not a care in the world. In a sense, she is “leaving the world behind.” This speaks to our real world’s larger obsession with media in any form. It’s becoming so encompassing in so many people’s lives that many of them end up forsaking the real world. Though, it seems counter-intuitive to explore the dangers of excess media consumption within a 2 ¾ hr piece of media that I am in the process of consuming. I guess this did succeed in providing a meta feeling of dread which is in line with the film’s larger themes. SPOILER ALERT OVER.

Overall the film is kind of a mixed bag, but it does present director Sam Esmail as a talent to watch. After his hit TV show Mr. Robot (2015-2019), I was excited yet a bit nervous to see what he would do with a somewhat significantly budgeted film. Many successful TV creators who transition to film don’t often do so as smoothly as one would think. Although Leave the World Behind isn’t fully a success, Esmail does succeed in maintaining his unique visual style, bleak use of tension, and cyber-terror themes. The dialogue is a bit spotty at times, but the tension is masterfully sustained throughout most of the film. It just doesn’t lead to a place that was particularly unique or exciting in a story sense. In a thematic sense, the film’s ending succeeds perfectly. If you want a film that is truly unique, I don’t think one could go wrong with this, it just doesn’t quite stick the landing in all the ways in which you’d want it to. B–