"Everything is going to be okay, isn't it?"
Amanda: We're in this together with you 'til things get back to normal.
G.H.: Amanda, we gotta start seeing this for what it is. There is no going back to normal.
G.H.: Amanda, we gotta start seeing this for what it is. There is no going back to normal.
Leave the World Behind is a Netflix Original Survival-Thriller Film, written and directed by Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot, Homecoming), produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, and based upon the book written by Rumaan Alam. Starring Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, Myha'la Herrold (Bodies Bodies Bodies) & Kevin Bacon.
Amanda Sanford (Roberts) suddenly decides to take her husband, Clay (Hawke), and tech-addicted children, Rose (Farrah Mackenzie) and Archie (Charlie Evans), on a vacation to a rented house in Long Island. After a disastrous beach day, however, the family is confronted by the owners of the house — G.H. Scott (Ali) and his daughter, Ruth (Myha'la), who warn of a blackout. As the threat grows, both families must decide how best to survive the potential crisis, all while grappling with their own place in the rapidly collapsing world.
The film premiered at the AFI Fest on October 25th, 2023, had a limited theatrical release on November 22nd, 2023, and was ultimately released on Nextlix December 8th, 2023.
This film contains examples of:
- Apathetic Citizens: The oil tanker heads for the shore for a long time, and it's only when it's minutes away from beaching itself does anyone consider fleeing the area.
- Apocalypse How: A nationwide Class 1, bordering on Class 2, thanks to the three-stage plan outlined by G.H. targeting the United States:
- Stage One: Isolation — "Disable their communication and transportation. Make the target as deaf, dumb and paralyzed as possible."
- Stage Two: Synchronized Chaos — "Terrorize them with covert attacks and misinformation, overwhelming their defense capabilities, leaving their weapons systems vulnerable to extremists within their own military. Without a clear enemy or motive, people would start turning on each other."
- Stage Three: Coup D'état — "Civil war. Collapse."
- Arc Number: One carried over from Mr. Robot — the house's analog clock is stopped at 11:16.
- Bilingual Bonus: While out driving, Clay meets a woman who speaks Spanish (left untranslated for both him and the audience), and a drone drops multiple pamphlets in untranslated Arabic.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: The movie was made and distributed by Netflix. Rose's happiness at the end depends entirely on the fact that she found Friends DVDs so she could still finish it despite the Internet being down (likely permanently, or at least for a long time). For bonus points, the camera even zooms in on Rose bypassing the "Netflix" button on the remote.
- Bittersweet Ending: The movie ends with daughter Rose discovering the secret bunker beneath the neighbor's house after following the signs left by the deer, sitting down in front of a DVD player and a bookshelf packed full of movies to watch the final episode of Friends, something she'd clearly been quite upset over the idea of never getting to see in the face of a virtual apocalypse. Amanda and Ruth have finally managed to overcome their enmity with one another, comforting each other as they watch New York City be bombed in the distance, with the implication that they'll follow the tracks Rosie's bike left and discover the bunker as well in the near future. Clay and G.H. leave Danny's house with a new ally and medicine for a sick Archie, also aware of the bunker's presence thanks to Danny's information. The reasonable and fairly optimistic conclusion to draw is that both families will wind up forging some sort of life together inside the bunker, secure in their safety and well-being and trust in one another now that all is said and done, but that doesn't change the fact that the United States is still being taken over by an unknown country, plunging it and its citizens into a civil war that could last god-knows how long and end in a horrific amount of people dead. Also, Ruth's mother and G.H.'s wife is likely dead, having almost certainly been on a plane flying home when everything in the air began to go down, and there's no guarantee that the medication that Clay and G.H. got for Archie will be able to cure whatever it is that he has, or if its effects are even survivable. There's also the Unresolved Sexual Tension between Amanda and G.H., along with the possible attraction Ruth has for Clay, that could cause problems in the future.
- Chekhov's Gun: Literally. Subverted. Early in the film there is a very deliberate shot of a gun in the drawer of the liquor cabinet when G.H. opens it up, leading the audience to believe that tension between the two families will escalate to violence at some point. This never happens and while the gun does make a reappearance it remains unfired until the end of the film.
- The Coup: The ultimate goal of whoever enabled The Plan — G.H. describes what's happening as "a simple, three-stage maneuver that could topple a country's government from within."
- Crazy Survivalist: G.H.'s contractor, Danny, is a doomsday prepper who winds up a few steps ahead of the curve when everything goes to hell. G.H. and Clay go to him for some medicine. Danny tips them off to a bunker built by some rich neighbors nearby, and gives G.H. a tip about similar events in San Diego that lead him to realize what's happening.
- Creator Cameo: Esmail cameos as the dead, bloody pilot of a wrecked airplane that G.H. discovers on the beach.
- Easter Egg: Embedded in the audio is Albert Einstein's quote: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
- Establishing Character Moment: Amanda is introduced having rented a house in Long Island without telling any of her family, in the middle of packing for said vacation in front of said (very drowsy) husband. She then goes over to the window and monologues about her view of the world before staring down the barrel of the camera and saying:
- Humans Are Bastards: What Amanda firmly believes, and why she is initially distrustful of the Scotts. G.H. ultimately indicates this is why America was so easy to take over — "If the target nation was dysfunctional enough it would, in essence, do the work for you."
- Innocently Insensitive: In one scene, Amanda, in a burst of anger, says, "People we know are likely dead!" while Ruth (who's deeply worried about her mother) is present, which makes the latter leave the scene sobbing.
- Lady Drunk: Amanda is a bitter mom who spends most of her time with a glass of wine in her hand.
- Not Now, Kiddo: Rose is often ignored or her concerns minimized by the adults around her and, especially, her brother, who always seems to counsel she be apathetic. This leads to her going off on her own with a bike to follow the signs the deer were giving, which makes her the first person to reach the mansion bunker Clay later tells the fathers about.
- Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending: Only the two families seem to have any sort of happy or even optimistic ending. Everyone except Rosie sees New York City getting bombed from a distance, presumably many people are killed in the bombings, the piles-up of traffic, and whatever else chaos is happening, especially in the cities, but all the named characters are shown relatively safe and happy in luxurious homes with enough food and water for now, which puts them in a much more advantageous position than everyone else.
- The Peeping Tom: Archie takes pictures of Ruth from a distance. He masturbates to it later.
- Riddle for the Ages: Who caused the crisis, and why? What do they want, and what happens next? None of these questions are ever definitively answered — but this trope is also invoked, as G.H. speculates that the intention of whoever's doing it is to leave these rational questions unanswered because whoever it is wants to use this and disturbance to cause chaos.
- Shared Universe: According to
Word of God, "all of the things [writer/director Sam Esmail] worked on, Mr. Robot, Homecoming, Comet, and Leave the World Behind are all set in kind of the same universe". This film in particular has a strong connection to Mr. Robot:- Amanda has an account with Confictura Industries.
- Danny is seen loading E-Corp branded "Five/Nine Emergency Kits" into his truck and Amanda has an E-Corp branded laptop.
- One of the items the family takes with them is Beach Towel, a novel written by one Otto Irving.
- Ruth mentions "The thing that happened in Jersey a few years back" as an example of hackers destabilizing the government, referencing the Washington Township Toxic Waste Plant, which Whiterose based her operation / machine out of.
- While drunk and attempting to get on better terms with Amanda, G.H. tells her a story about one of his clients as a stockbroker, an extremely wealthy man who did work in the defense sector, who made a comment that both later wrote off as a joke about taking a trip to meet up with the other members of his "secret cabal that controls the world." Despite G.H.'s staunch opinion that such a thing wouldn't be possible, viewers of Mr. Robot would likely recognize this "cabal" as the Deus Group, apparently still operating in some form even after the deaths of Price and Whiterose and their subsequent exposure by Elliot. Lending credence to this view is that the defense contractor apparently somehow knew of the plan to destabilize and take control of the US, giving G.H. an accurate, step-by-step plan on how it would happen before leaving for another country on "vacation" just before the events of the movie went down.
- Spooky Animal Sounds: The film uses animal sounds like deer bellows, raven caws, and geese honks to set an ominous atmosphere.
- Skewed Priorities: Even though her family become trapped in the middle of a potentially life-threatening national crisis with very little explanation as to what's going on, all Rosie is apparently concerned about is that she will probably never get to watch the finale of the TV show Friends. Justified Trope in a later scene in which she expresses that, from her point of view, she is denied of the one thing that would give her a tiny sliver of happiness now, when everything is falling apart.
- Symbolic Glass House: The rented vacation home has wide glass windows and walls, and there's a lot of focus on people looking in and out of the windows at each other. When things get even worse, the glass cracks, which mirrors the characters' deteriorating mental health.
- Suicidal Lemmings: A non-mammal variant — in order to block off roads, the (presumed) hackers behind the collapse remotely pilot self-driving cars to crash into each other and pile up, making roads near-impossible to traverse. The Sanfords arrive in the middle of a pile-up and have to essentially swim upstream while avoiding head-on collisions.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: While finding common ground and becoming friendly, there's a moment after dancing together where Amanda and G.H. hold each other close. Both seemingly realise what is going on, with Amanda pointing out that they're both drunk and married, and reminding G.H. of his wife leading the two to discuss it instead. Meanwhile, Ruth asks pretty provocative questions about Clay's sex life and whether he's had an affair with any of his students. When he questions why she would asks that, she only says that he seems like the sort of guy where things, especially women, come easy. Later on she tells G.H. that she's convinced that Clay wants to sleep with her, though she says he's not the type of guy to actually do it.
- You Hate What You Are: Amanda and Ruth particularly dislike each other and have the most openly hostile and aggressive meetings. However, Amanda notes the similarity between them and talks to Ruth about it. This conversation ultimately helps to ease much of the tension between them, though it's not exactly solved.
