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I became aware of Leave the World Behind, a new film that’s now streaming on Netflix, when Julia Roberts mentioned it a few days ago on the Graham Norton Show, where she co-guested with Cher, Tom Hanks, and Timothée Chalamet. Her sales pitch was impressive. She said that when the producers were casting it, they sent her a copy of the 2020 novel by Rumaan Alam on which it’s based. She dove into it at once, but took a long time getting to the end because it was so terrifying that she had to put it down at sunset.
Partly because of that pitch, and partly because I’d watch Julia Roberts in anything – well, not Eat Pray Love – I checked the picture out. It starts by introducing us to Amanda (Roberts), who works in advertising and lives in Brooklyn Heights with her husband, Clay (Ethan Hawke), a professor of media studies, and their teenage kids, Archie (Charlie Evans, who could be Chalamet’s younger brother) and Rose (Farrah Mackenzie). As the story begins, Amanda tells Clay that they’re all going to get out of the city for a couple of days, away from it all. “I f***ing hate people!” she squawks. She’s already rented a Long Island beach house.
So off they go. The rental turns out to be one of those sprawling, ultra-modern architectural showplaces that seem to turn up frequently in Netflix movies (Secret Obsession, The Invitation, Intrusion). Anyway, no sooner are Amanda and her family settled in than weird things start happening. Their phones don’t work. Neither does the TV. On the beach, an oil tanker runs aground. (Great visual.) The name of the tanker is White Lion. (White lyin’? Is this a reference to the perfidy of Western countries vis-à-vis OPEC countries?) That night, the house’s owner, G. H. Scott (Mahershala Ali), shows up in a tuxedo with his twenty-something daughter, Ruth (Myha’la), and explains that they’ve been to a concert and decided to come here, rather than return to their principal residence (Park Avenue between 81st and 82nd in Manhattan, no less), because there’s a blackout in the city.
There’s instant tension. Amanda, the misanthrope, doesn’t trust G. H. Yes, he’s obviously from a higher socioeconomic class than she is – but he’s also black. Would somebody like Amanda be racist? No. But we’re supposed to believe she is. In any event, the Scotts stay over. And the morrow brings more weirdness. On the beach, G. H. encounters the remains of a crashed airliner, then witnesses the crash of another. (Another great visual.) Clay, driving to town, is stopped by a terrified woman babbling hysterically in Spanish (a wince-inducing cliché) and is engulfed in leaflets, dropped from a drone, reading “Death to America” in Arabic. Back at the house, deer, flamingos, and birds begin acting funny. (Another cliché.) Flickers of news come in: a news update on Amanda’s phone says that hackers caused the power outage; the TV works for a few seconds, during which there’s mention of cyberattacks taking place around the country; Clay, in his car, hears a fragment of a news report about a “catastrophic environmental disaster in south.”
Amanda and Clay decide it’s time to leave. But when they and the kids drive off, they end up dodging a fleet of self-driving cars, all of them empty, that are racing dangerously down the highway into one big pile-up. (Yet another cool visual.) So it’s back to G. H.’s place, where the families grow closer even as the tensions persist – and the suspense builds. G. H., an investment banker, admits that the real reason he eschewed Manhattan the night before was that just before the blackout, a client of his – a defense contractor with Pentagon connections – made a large, urgent transfer of funds and warned him cryptically to take care of himself.
I have to say that the first two-thirds or so of this movie had me going. The acting – by the adults, anyway – is terrific. The suspense, thanks to strong camerawork (Tod Campbell) and music (Mac Quayle), builds nicely. (On the other hand, the scenes focusing on the kids – who remain stubbornly one-dimensional throughout – feel endless, dragging this 141-minute movie down significantly.) One eerie touch, reminiscent of the chilling 2007 movie 1408: although the camera doesn’t play it up at all, the huge abstract painting that dominates the living room keeps changing.
Going into Leave the World Behind, I knew that its executive producers were Barack and Michelle Obama, so I kept waiting for political messages. When they did come, I was reminded that back in the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood writers who belonged to the American Communist Party were under strict orders from Moscow to work Stalinist propaganda into their scripts, but not to be too heavy-handed about it.
So it goes here. It’s no surprise that while the white man, Clay, is something of a wimp, the black guy, G. H., is preternaturally wise, civilized, and brave; even though he’s pretty sure his wife, an art dealer – who, when the blackout hit, was flying back home from Morocco – is dead, he maintains remarkable self-control. At one point, he and Clay drop in on a neighbor, Danny (Kevin Bacon), so the filmmakers can show us how they think a gun-owning MAGA type would respond to catastrophe. “It’s the Koreans behind all this,” says Danny. “The Chinese, one of them.” Yet even he, a heartless white survivalist from Central Casting, parrots leftist geopolitics: “We’ve made a lot of enemies around the world. Maybe all this means is that a few of them teamed up.”
Then there’s Ruth. When, at one point, she says to G. H. that “trust should not be doled out easily to anybody, especially white people,” we’re plainly not supposed to see her as a racist but as a realist in a white supremacist world who’s trying to rein in her overly big-hearted dad.
Of all the characters in this piece, it’s Amanda who changes the most. At first a total pill, she eventually loosens up with G. H. – almost to the point of adultery. And she apologizes for having been suspicious, explaining that her “whole job is to understand people well enough so that I know how to lie to them and sell them things they don’t really want.” Human beings, she says, “f*** each other over all the time without even realizing it. We f*** every living thing on this planet over and think it’ll be fine because we use paper straws and order free-range chicken.” Is all this scary stuff, she wonders, happening because of man’s inhumanity to man?
Meanwhile, for all the terror that’s unfolding, Rose can’t stop whining about how desperate she is to continue binging Friends. These details seem to add up to a bit of a sneer – courtesy of Netflix, mind you! – at Americans’ addiction to media. Nor does it seem random that Rose’s favorite show is that vapid, all-white fantasy of New York life.
Ultimately, the main problem with Leave the World Behind is that all of the effective suspense-building turns out to be for naught. I don’t want to give away the ending, but then again there’s not really much of one to give away. When it was over, all that I was left with was a vaguely bad taste in my mouth; in the end, the film felt like a glib indictment of Americans – particularly white males. In one shot we see the earth from the moon’s surface, an American flag in the foreground: is the point here that Americans have used technology to “conquer space” while, at the same time, trashing the earth?
Who’s behind this movie? I looked up Sam Esmail, its writer-director. Turns out he’s a Muslim who, when he won a Golden Globe for his TV series Mr. Robot, gave his acceptance speech in Arabic. Curious about his source material, I bought the Kindle edition of the novel, whose author also has a Muslim background. For what it’s worth, the book is beautifully written, and, like the movie, is preoccupied with race and class; Esmail’s main contribution is to have piled on the weird events and dialed up the message-mongering – the latter, one gathers, with no little help from Barack Obama himself, who is said to have exercised major input into the screenplay.
Which raises the question: why – aside from the delicious Democrat-style digs at white America – did the Obamas choose to produce this, of all properties? After all, it presents a scenario of precisely the type that you can easily imagine Obama and his fellow globalists deciding to inflict on us all. At the climax, as the adults try to dope out what’s going on, G. H. rejects as simple-minded the proposition that the world is run by a secret cabal of elites. What a message to be sent by Barack and Michelle, those two Davos darlings!
No, what’s going on, G. H. suspects, is the implementation of a Pentagon plan that he heard about from that defense-contractor client of his. It involves toppling a country in three stages. First, isolate everybody by disabling communications. Second, bring about “synchronized chaos” through misinformation and other means so that people “turn on each other.” Third: “coup d’etat. Civil war.” Again, it’s a bizarre speech to hear in a picture produced by the Obamas – for who knows more about turning Americans on each other than our blessed Barack, who transformed an essentially post-racial country into one where racial identity soon became the be-all and end-all, and who, behind the scenes, is still hard at work trying to rip this country further and further apart?
Still, when you think about what Leave the World Behind, in the final analysis, is saying to us, the Obamas’ involvement doesn’t seem so odd after all. For in part, at least, it’s saying exactly what the Obamas’ Teutonic buddy Klaus Schwab – the World Economic Forum despot – has been saying for some time: simplify, simplify! Don’t be so dependent on technology and media. Don’t travel so much. Why leave a nice apartment to stay in somebody else’s beach house? Why have two lavish residences, one in Manhattan and the other on Long Island? Why fly to Morocco? And what about all that free-range chicken? No, better to live in 15-minute cities, buy less, drive less, eat bugs, and be prohibited from flying. It may sound repressive, but it’ll be good for the planet, limit the impact of cyberattacks, and keep you safe. And believe it or not, you’ll like it. Because you’ll know – from, in part, propagandistic pictures like this one – that the only alternative to systematic and obedient self-denial is a creepy descent into sheer apocalyptic horror.
Nothing would the Obama’s of the world happier than a citizen revolt. Biden threatened his fellow citizens he said ‘the federal government has nuclear weapons and F-16s.’ Like Stalin they have purged the military, it be beyond stupid to go down fighting with no hope of success.
It sounds like an Obama fever dream. Whites are racist, blacks are the “magic negro” saviors if we let them and not oppress them. Musk’s Tesla is dangerous. MAGA hicks cling to their guns and Bibles suspicious of those who “don’t look like them”,The daughters comment about whites sound like a Michelle quote. And capitalism has led to our doom. I believe we are more vulnerable to a Chinese EMP or an open border invasion created by Obama himself.
make that “Michelle” in quotes.
Or just stick to Big Mike.
Thanks for sharing your experience, I’ll give it a miss.
Also HG’s neighbors down the street are the Huxleys which reminds us of Aldous Huxley who wrote Brave New World where humans are engineered to entertain and be abused by the elite cabal ruling the world. Hmmm…. Also isn’t Obama I mean Barry Soetoro a Muslim? Remember the Stephanopolous interview with Barry I mean Barack where he says his Muslim faith and George has to correct him and say you mean your Christian faith and he says oh ya my Christian faith. How stupid do they think we are? Well most of the sheople are I guess?
Who can know what Obama really is, and what he really believes? He lies, and he lies about his lies.
Soetoro the Muslim has always used “taqiyya”, the Muslim doctrine which commands you to lie to the infidel in the name of Allah to guarantee eventual world domination and world peace, united under Sharia Law
The only one in the movie that came off as a racist was the daughter who was otherwise a typical blacksmith girl since the Obama’s reracialized America. Julia Roberts was unlikeable, and too old to be the mother of a young daughter. The show seemed more an indictment of Obama’s America than propaganda for it, with racial motives being invented by the black daughter in a world where race otherwise plays no role.Racism is ahard sell in a story where the blacks are the billionaires, squished into the decrepit basement of their multimillion dollar mansion. The ,
Bacon was mostly pointless except that he was a survivalist in an apocalypse. Ethan Hawke was mostly a nice guy who had to confront the fact he was a coward when le left the Hispanic lady stranded- as if he could do anything to help..
In the end, it was the Y2K story coming to fruition twenty three years after the fact. That is the fear that draws us to the screen, even to a film that has all the characters either flat, or stereotypes and otherwise un likeable. As technologies dominate, that makes us feel
vulnerable.
It is a world without friends otherwise, no heroes, no good guys, and where everybody hates everybody else.. Nostalgia is as good as it gets in such a world.
I guess.
Just as Obama was an empty suit of a president, this is an empty suit of a movie.. Everybody is a stereotype of their identity group, but with no character or substance, and everybody is alone.
Agreed – empty suit of a movie. I’m a sucker for apocalyptic movies and this one was just plain bad.
Anything connected to couple of world class grifters like the Obamas and hatred of anything American I’ll pass on. Even if I have to miss some cinematography will played.
The Obama’-Muslim duo simply reflect the confused suspended state many voters are fed by the mainstream media and academia elites: torn between group tribalism and individual melting pot success. Being liberals, every day they automatically decide what’s “in it for me”, and choose one or the other, depending on perceived material gains. Often they’re mistaken and blame whites or Christians (who believe in separating God and Caesar, unlike non-Christians). Instead of simplify reading and understanding the Gospel and Jesus.
The ONLY reason this film is being lauded as the latest propaganda offering from the Obamas is because it adds to the impact they want to bring to bear because of Barry-boy’s need to continue to try and tear America apart.
This film is nothing but a bore and regardless of two or three A-list actors taking part to try and give this film any credence at all, it is slow and plodding and comes close to being a “B” film.
Breaking down all the symbolism is a fool’s game and offers nothing more than the continuance of the hysteria that is unfolding in America, as Americans try and find meaning in the destruction of our country at the hands of psychopaths and ignorant fools !!!
You certainly let down your hair, and spoke truth. Consider myself an expert on the electric grid, and vulnerabilities and weaknesses especially to the severe criminal mass ejection, a high-altitude nuclear burst, radiofrequency attack, physical/cyber attacks (which are ongoing now).
Everything, I say everything, is absurd about this B level movie From the very short time duration of a blackout in Manhattan, to the supposedly huge area of a microwave attack on humans, to having a pileup of autonomous vehicles somewhere on Long Island (and all white vehicles besides), to the idea that the toothless son returned with three bluish pills, to the idea of a “safe house” Being unlocked and nonsecured, to the totally ridiculous Threatening herd of deer. By the author of this article stated, the ending left a very bad taste in my mouth. This is not How it will go down..
Don’t trust white people and Islam is coming for you evil Americans. I would be surprised if this movie wasn’t made with contributions from the Obama’s. Obama has always been a secret muslim to me, so this movie was perfect for him.
It was co-produced by the extreme leftist Obama’s.
People are reading way too much intro this. I saw it. It was BORING, with another non-ending ending that is becoming the norm for a generation of writers who haven’t realized that conformity of thought is killing creativity.
As dystopian fiction goes, the premise sounds interesting. Like Elysium, Demolition Man or The Matrix.
It was pretty awful.
What if every actor was a stereotype and the emergency broadcast system didn’t work properly and cell phones never ran out of power and being rich means being correct, honest and reliable (hint, the Obamas) and terminal diseases could be cured with “medicine”, what would world be like?
Insufferable, that’s what. “For the living will envy the dead.” Darn right. I suspect all these survivors made their money selling sub-prime mortgages.
Frank Zappa was right: “Plastic people. Oh baby, you’re such a drag.”
Leave the World Behind Obama pushing leftists Propaganda film? Don’t put it past him since Obama is a Socialists/Leftists
I wouldn’t watch anything produced/written by the Obamas.
They made a movie about the Obamas a few years ago SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU It Bombed
Anything produced by the America-hating, grifting Obamas is an instant hard pass. Don’t need to even read reviews like this. BO automatically means stink!
Obama, ideally, seems to wants to head an interplanetary federation, a la Star Trek.
Good luck with that—we’ve got to find the aliens first, and hope they don’t incinerate us.
Except that Star Trek was humanitarian and FIRST CLASS entertainment.
There’s always some truth mixed in with leftist lies.
There are some bad white guys–Biden, Bill Gates, Bezos, Newsom, Fauci . . . it’s ideology, not skin color.
The world is a mess– terrorists, crime, political corruption, desecration of human life and morals . . .
There are racists–who wish to destroy blacks with drugs, violence, and poverty in Democrat run inner city slums. . .
It does take a village–do you want your kids to live in a gang infested neighborhood with drive-by shootings?
I grew up in a small town where everyone knew the neighbors and kids could get help from anyone if they got sick or skinned a knee . . .
Why do we allow Democrats to scapegoat us as the problem when they are responsible for most of the mayhem.
I watched it. It was moderately entertainingly but somewhat boring. I am glad I was unaware of the Obama’s involvement in the film or I would have it ripped apart without just watching it as the B movie it is.
An aging Julia Roberts was miscast for the part. I think audiences want to see her talented and aging gracefully, not sour and dull. Ethan Hawke’s roll was flyweight. The black daughter was a nasty hateful racist who flaunts her body in front of a teen male and then criticizes him for acting like a teen male. Whites are racist, whites are racist, whites are racist……
As a field biologist, I kept thinking animals would not behave like that. The ending was screwy.
I would say watch it for what it is, but I don’t want the Obamas profiting from it. A man who obviously looks down on this country should ever have been elected it’s president! Didn’t people read his first book before voting for him? He repeatedly expressed his disdain for the country and it’s people.
I watched it and found it to be weird. Roberts was too old for that roll and most of the characters were unlikable. The fact that the Obama’s had anything to do with it made me curious, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
The Obama’s hate this country and everyth9ng it has ever stood for. They are Godless Communists that worship Hate and Death. they know that a nation that hates itself and everyone in it will kill itself in the end THEY ARE EVIL
This is a transparently racist social engineering endeavor by B.O. and his Muslim partners. Note the leaflet dropped from the drones is in Arabic. It was impossible not to hear the genteel “poor stupid racist white woman” tone in the acting of the black protagonists. White Lion as the name of the tanker was a sneaky little jab. The white woman was a beatch, the white man a dip and a coward who makes a victim out of a Mexican, the white son totally vapid, the daughter obsessed with fantasy and the white prepper a stereotype they’d love to pin on all conservatives. I would expect nothing less than this divisive racist trash from the Obamas and they deliver admirably. I do believe they got off on giving us all a sneak peek of the elite agenda for the future.
Can’t agree with you, Bruce, about Friends. It was hilarious. It was a well-written comedy that is still popular today because of that comedy writing, which included real friendship bonds among the characters.
I watched part of it with my roommate who’s a huge julia roberts fan, until a few minutes after the airliner graveyard scene, and bedtime. I had no trouble turning it off, and read my book instead of finishing it the next night. My roommate finished it and was disappointed, but gave no spoilers in case I decided to finish it. Two days later I saw a news article about the obama involvement and it made more sense, just not in a good way. I didn’t even bother asking how it ended, I could probably guess.
The visuals of the tanker and airliner were good, but it was too improbable with crewed vessels. The animal reactions indicated a natural, not man made disaster. The characters were unlikable, and stereotypical(the new kind), along with the situations, typical woke hollywood. It’s why I watch so few new movies and shows these days, and I used to be a movie buff.
A spoof of it would be more entertaining.
Thanks for the lowdown. Now I’ll just skip over it when searching something to watch.
Same here. I’m glad I read this, although I would’ve like a spoiler about the movie’s ending. I’ll check Weakipedia for that. I’ve seen both of the Netflix trailers and the movie’s anti American theme is obvious as the attempt to conceal it. As much as I can’t abide Julia Roberts and the movie’s obvious anti white racism, black worship and left-wing subversion, I might of watched it out of curiosity. Not now.
I’ll stick to movies like “Fast Charlie” and “Finestkind.”
SPOILER ALERT: “Friends”-obsessed Rose finds curiously unlocked, undefended and unoccupied doomsday bunker (did family ever pick a worse weekend to be away?) . Rose gets to watch last episode of “Friends” in the bespoke bomb shelter. Of course Amanda will eventually find Rose and the rest of the apocalyptic A-Team passing for two families will settle into the cozy bunker and spend the rest of the next ten years together arguing over the most fair distribution of canned beans.
Let’s not forget the “1619” radio station.