Leave the World Behind

 

Writer / director Sam Esmail's chillingly cryptic apocalypse tale Leave the World Behind on Netflix asks us to consider not just the "how and why" of societal collapse but the "what then."

Unlike other popular Armageddon movies and series that take a fight for a new day position, the answer Esmail offers, much like what he presented in his fascinating machines and madness series Mr. Robot, is "Well, it depends. But every possible scenario is bleak and will likely not speak well of us."

Ethan Hawke and Julia Roberts are a New York City couple who go with their two kids (Farrah MacKenzie and Charlie Evans) to a Long Island rental for a weekend vacation at the beach. The house is luxurious and the family settle in just as they lose all connectivity to their devices -- phones, laptops and televisions. Snowy hiss is interrupted briefly by warnings of cyberattacks and the grounding of an oil tanker at the nearby beach suggest much is amiss.

When father and daughter Mahershala Ali and Myha'la arrive that night claiming to be the owners of the house returning after a blackout in the city, the film's coiled mystery, told in ominously titled chapters, begins to unwind -- along with the characters' wits and in one instance health.

Esmail is a master of misdirection, so it is not surprising that the truth is elusive, maybe frustratingly so for some, but for me the fun of Leave the World Behind is listening to the six principals take stock not only of the fate of the world but their own vitality and purpose, how open they are to others, to their own hearts and how committed they are to one another's welfare. These are meaningful exchanges that I think are meant to prompt us to assess and reflect.

How well they succeed depends on, er, well, who we are, I suppose. Hopefully our conclusions will speak well of us.