REVIEW: ‘Leave The World Behind’ Paints An All-Too Timely Doomsday

The streaming age’s fascination with dystopian futures and doomsday scenarios cannot be understated. It’s a sub-genre that taps into a generation’s innate pessimism, a mounting disillusionment with institutions and systems that have not only begun to show their cracks but outright collapse. Akin to an open buffet, streamers have gorged themselves on a steady diet of such beliefs, delivering lifeless, lacklustre treatments on our obsession with man’s worst tendencies. At first glance, Sam Esmail’s Leave The World Behind feels like it’s going to be another toothless entry into an ever-growing portfolio of duds, with one of its characters boldly proclaiming what other Netflix originals have built their brand upon: “I f___ hate people.”

But instead, it pops with colour and vigour—a giddy, razor-like sense of intrigue, tension, and, above all, humanity. Over 140 minutes, the film’s nightmarish future reflects life back at us in the most biting ways, tapping into humanity as a quality that will surely damn us but will save us too. Its vision of the apocalypse is one that’s grounded, prescient, and uncharacteristically lively, weaponizing our assertions and assumptions to keep us on edge. While its playful commentary and fleshed-out ensemble help to cement an experience that’s not only a cut above its streaming contemporaries, but sharper than anything one could’ve expected on the platform.

Adapted from Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel of the same name, Leave The World Behind centres on two families that are slowly forced into becoming one. The first, more nuclear of which are the Sandfords. Amanda (Julia Roberts) and Clay (Ethan Hawke) are a middle-class couple living in a Brooklyn apartment with their teenage son (Charlie Evans) and Friends-obsessed daughter (Farrah Mackenzie). Amanda books a sudden weekend family getaway in Long Island, taking them from the droning bustle of New York to an idyllic, almost too-green escape.

At the tail-end of the first night, the family is greeted by a foreboding knock at the door. GH (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter, Ruth (a snide Myha’la), arrive, explaining they own the house and would like to stay the night on account of the massive blackout in the city. Much to the chagrin of Amanda, Clay invites them in. What ensues is a dive into paranoia, a slow, painful series of revelations that hint the world, as they know it, is over— but the possible why and how of it is the true startling reveal.

Leave The World Behind is a memorable exercise in Hitchcockian delights, a tale of setups and payoffs that delectably crescendo, whether in the form of tumbling Jenga blocks, an impossibly large herd of deer, or an oddly fitting use of the Friends theme song. Chekov’s gun becomes a bazooka in Esmail’s hands, as he devilishly intercuts between multiple characters in widely different situations to great effect. He shocks, captivates, and confounds us at each turn, rendering our dependence on technology and the internet into a deeply relatable horror in some of the grandest, destructive set-pieces the genre has seen. While Leave The World Behind does leave its share of loose ends, its thematic undercurrent burbles with its own kind of winking finality.

The film’s fascinating edge is due to Esmail’s technical and visual prowess. Esmail’s camera twists and contorts around the families, capturing them from impossible angles while getting us uncomfortably familiar with a paradisaic home that will slowly unravel. Along with cinematographer Tod Campbell, Esmail employs striking long takes and slow, campy zooms accented by a Giallo-esque score that unnerves and entrances in equal measure. For as chatty as Leave The World Behind can get, Esmail’s commitment to a visually dynamic experience is what allows the film to be that much more resonant and bracing, crafting awe-inspiring frames that both dwarf his characters—often pushing them to the recesses of the shot— and bring us discomfortingly close to them.

As much as Esmail and company are focused on fostering visual heft, they’re equally committed to their characters—what they are and aren’t. Amanda represents the skeptics in all of us, tired of the “agreed upon mass delusion” we live in and prone to seeing the worst in others. She’s also a bonafide “Karen,” perplexed by the idea that a black man, however as well-dressed as GH, is capable of owning a beautifully designed home. She’s easy to hate but is brought to life by a sparkling Julia Roberts, who brings forward her best performance in years.

Ethan Hawke does great work as the loveable and utterly useless Clay, a man whose utility is dependent on a Wi-Fi connection. Yet, it’s Ali who brings forward the film’s most nuanced performance, capturing a man who, while gentle and learned, can take matters into his own hands. Kevin Bacon is also loads of fun in a minor role, chewing the scenery as a right-wing survivalist who saw the writings on the wall (or did he?).  It’s an ensemble that lends flavour to a cast of characters who could have easily been bland caricatures.

While Leave The World Behind can be too on-the-nose at times, it never fails to be an engrossing and chilling look at a doomsday that we can’t help but catapult ourselves towards. It’s not hard to see why Michelle and Barack Obama served as executive producers on film so attuned to the times, it’s practically yelling at us to turn it off and take a cold, hard look in the mirror.

Leave The World Behind is streaming now on Netflix.