THIS IS AN ACTUAL INTELLECTUAL EMERGENCY! PLEASE STAND BY… A Critical Review of Leave The World Behind   

By Chris M. Barkley:

Leave The World Behind (4 out of 4 stars ****), with Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Myha’la, Ethan Hawke, Farrah Mackenzie, Charlie Evans and Kevin Bacon. Adapted for the screen and directed by Sam Esmail, based on the 2020 National Book Award nominated novel Leave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam. 

(Author’s Note: I had originally planned on presenting you a very different column on a very different subject. But, due to the recent popularity and subsequent controversy surrounding the recent release of Netflix’s apocalyptic thriller Leave The World Behind, I felt compelled to write this rather terse (for me) review of the film, based on the incredulous responses I have seen and read by friends and acquaintances online. And, for the record, I do not use the term “incredulous” lightly, because at times I found myself wondering if they saw the same film I did.

In any event, the column I meant to write will be shelved until next year. The following film review is being offered as a public service…CMB)  

This past summer, I had the misfortune of having to travel to New York City by Greyhound bus in order to pick up my approved visa to travel to China for this year’s Worldcon. An airline ticket at current market prices was definitely out of the question and driving to and into Manhattan (and finding a parking space) was equally unattractive. 

Fortunately for me, the Chinese Consulate was just a six block walk on 42nd Street from the New York-New Jersey Port Authority Bus Terminal. I booked a return trip home that was scheduled to leave four hours after I arrived.

Picking up the visa turned out to be a breeze. I returned to the Port Authority well ahead of the departure time, descended to the lowest level and lined up in a spot near the front of the line. 

Other people quickly sauntered in behind me and the line began to snake around the stanchions marking the gate entrance. And that’s when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that I was being observed. 

The man was white, around my age with a full white beard and a single suitcase. He was also wearing a red and white baseball cap festooned with a Confederate flag. What he seemed to be staring at was my National Public Radio promotional cap. 

I turned and returned the stare for just a few moments.

What I saw was an angry man who probably was forced to wear his Confederate hat instead of his Make America Great Again cap because the dry cleaners had “lost” it but he NEEDED to represent his political brand somehow today.

But I most definitely noted his disapproval and displeasure at my presence there.

We boarded the bus. We did not sit near each other or interact any further.

I doubt that person has given me a single thought since then. I can’t say that; I think about him, who he supports and what sort of hellish landscape he would like to inflict on people like myself, all the time.

These thoughts keep me up at night.

And if you had looked into his eyes that day, you’d be sleepless as well…

******

This past week, my partner Juli and I watched, Leave the World Behind. We decided to do so after hearing about the praise, wonderment, and vehement condemnation it has garnered since its limited run in theaters (on November 22nd, the anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy) and its streaming debut on Netflix on December 8th (which is, coincidentally, is the day after America memorializes the loss of life in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor).

Subtle? Maybe not. Onward…

One fine summer day, Amanda Sanford (Julia Roberts) surprises her husband Clay (Ethan Hawke) and their children, teenaged Archie (Charlie Evans) and pre-teen Rose (Farrah Mackenzi) with a trip to Long Island for a weekend retreat at a high end Airbnb rental.

Their arrival is far from tranquil; Amanda spies a hard bitten looking local (Kevin Bacon) loading bottled water into his pickup truck and giving her an evil eye, the kids experience intermittent internet blackouts on their devices and a trip to the beach is ruined when an enormous oil tanker runs aground exactly where they camped and they barely escape being killed.

By the time they get back to the house, everyone’s phones have stopped working and all the television and radio stations have stopped broadcasting.

Late that evening, two people show up at the front door; an elegantly dressed man, G.H. Scott (Mahershala Ali) and his teen daughter Ruth (Myha’la). G.H. apologizes profusely for intruding but he claims that he is the homeowner who has been corresponding with Amanda. They have returned unexpectedly because of an emergency situation in the city.

Amanda is immediately suspicious of the pair, as G.H. claims to have left his wallet in the city in the rush to come back. However, he does produce the key to the locked liquor cabinet, which is (more than) enough proof for Clay. The drawer also holds a great deal of cash which he offers as a partial refund to the couple.

What they don’t see is that the drawer also contains a large caliber pistol, which G.H. eyes with some apprehension before closing it.

And, despite the pleasantries they exchange from that moment forward, there are gnawing suspicions and simmering tensions between the Sanfords, who are white and the Scotts, who are black. 

And as the weekend progresses, many more inexplicable actions occur; herds of deer begin to congregate on the property’s edge to stare at them for uncomfortable periods of time, a strange, agonizing sound disorients them, a drone litters the countryside with flyers in an Islamic language and unmanned self-driving cars wreck themselves and clog the main highway leading to the city.

And then, things get worse. Much, much worse.

I consider myself a well-informed person. I am not only aware of the darker skeletons in America’s closet, I am also fully cognizant that in light of history over the past fifty years, we stand at the crossroads of either upholding our democratic values or descending headlong into becoming an autocratic cesspool of recriminations and violence.

And frankly, after seeing Leave The World Behind, I am scared shitless. And I am very dismayed that some of the negative reviews and criticisms I have read, only want to point out what they consider “plot holes” or “that doesn’t happen in real life” and “I hate it when the filmmakers don’t just come out and tell us what’s going on”.

Oh. Really?

Screenwriter and director Sam Esmail isn’t here to merely dole out “the truth” of what’s happening. It’s NOT that kind of film. Visually, in masterful strokes, he is using allegory, symbolism and ambiguity throughout the narrative (and if you look hard enough, the images jump right out at you) to creep you out and unsettle the hell out of you. 

And, when the implications of what you’ve seen finally sink in, scare the fuck out of you. 

We Americans take too many things in American society for granted; our freedom, security, privileges and, most importantly, the Rule of Law. And right now, at this very moment, there are people out there, secretly and stealthily, hacking away at America’s four pillars of civilization, with small, powerful, microscopic blows being administered every single day.

And it’s only a matter of time before those pillars will give way, fail and topple at some random and inopportune time.

And as we stand looking at the wreckage of what’s left of our republic, dazed, confused, emotionally and spiritually broken, we shouldn’t wonder how this could have happened. 

Because we did it to ourselves. 

Submitted for your consideration:

• In just the past few days, the leading presidential candidate of the Republican Party has been spewing rhetoric echoing the core beliefs of Hitler, Putin and Mussolini with the confidence of a would-be dictator.

• People in the leadership positions and the rank and file of the GOP have been either too reluctant or cowardly to openly criticize him, lest they piss him off or, even worse, the base of supporters that keep them in power.

• Those millions of supporters of the candidate and the party are all too eager to  embrace the lies, conspiracy theories and misinformation being peddled as the truth by cynical provocateurs.

• Right wing political and legal groups, like “Moms For Liberty” and the Federalist Society are hard at work trying to bend and subjugate the country to their decidedly conservative or theological will.

• White nationalists who want to “save” America (for themselves, of course) are not only recruiting people to their cause, they are actively attacking our societal norms  and vital portions of infrastructure through carefully planned acts of intimidation, violence and hacking over the internet, every day. 

Yes, at this moment, there can be no doubt America is still a first world superpower. But, as this film most pointedly shows, we are only also a few perilous steps from descending into an open civil war of our own making, which would swiftly be followed by mass chaos and armed anarchy.    

Some outside the United States have clearly gotten the message. One of the best reviews can be summed up in the following observation by UK film critic Clarisse Loughrey of the Independent from December 11th:

Esmail goes big and bold with his Hitchcock allusions and showy camera work… Yet nothing quite shows Esmail’s hand more than Rose’s chemical-like reliance on Friends, a show which Ruth describes as ‘nostalgic for a time that never existed’. Yes, it’s ironic that the series is currently available on Netflix – but that’s exactly the kind of thoroughly modern hypocrisy Leave the World Behind revels in.

The author of the novel, Rumaan Alam, who also served as an executive producer on the film (along with Julia Roberts), has not only signed off on the changes Esmail made to the narrative, but also praised how he ended the film, calling it “so satisfying”.

“To end with the particular jolt of humor that [Esmail] does is so satisfying and so rewarding,” he said. “It’s sort of self-reflective because he’s a filmmaker. He’s also worked in television, and he’s sort of asserting something about the power of that medium, and its hold over this one character. 

(The television show Mr. Alam is referring to is the critically acclaimed psychological techno thriller series, Mr. Robot, which ran on the USA Network between 2015-2019.) 

And it is Rose’s fixation on seeing the last episode of the long-running NBC sitcom that serves as the key to all the things this film is trying to convey to you, the viewer. And it’s not with a spoonful of soothing medicine labeled “The End – You Can Relax Now”.

Leave the World Behind is an openly pointed invitation to critically think about what’s happening around you as you go about your life every day, especially here in America, although it may equally apply to other nations that regard themselves as democracies. 

Because out there, unseen, but definitely humming in the background, is institutional and systemic racism, misogyny and religious intolerance which, in turn, is feeding the generational hate of the queer community, people of color and immigrants.

---

Tyranny Never Sleeps. Neither Should Democracy.

“The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.” ~ Gloria Steinem ~