Leave the World Behind is a new Netflix original film from Mr. Robot series creator Sam Esmail. The film stars Mahershala Ali, Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, and Kevin Bacon. After renting a house for a weekend vacation, things go awry for Clay (Hawke) and Amanda (Roberts) after all satellite transmissions are cut and the owners of the home return. Strange and unexplainable events occur leaving everyone to question everyone and everything.
Going into this my expectations were all over the place. Mixing a good looking cast with an established television writer puts a foot in the right direction. However, the first trailer for the film looked as strong as a tree branch in the winter- maybe it can be strong, but I am not convinced just looking at it. Luckily, Leave the World Behind is not a nightmare like I imagined it would be, but at the same time it is not the strongest that it could have been. Let us take a deep dive into Sam Esmail’s newest film Leave the World Behind.
Dialogue
Instead of dividing this into the good and the bad, every element stuck out easy enough to break down. The dialogue in this movie is abysmal. Almost every line is written strangely, delivered awkwardly, and/ or totally misdirecting. Several lines led me to believe something else was going to happen. Whether that be an insider conspiracy, a direct connection to the problem, or some other hidden intention- the dialogue was misleading.
Unfortunately, a good portion of this movie is dialogue based in between the stressful moments of storytelling via any other method. Inexplicable happenings and questionable motives are way more interesting. However, the issue with the questionable motives portion is how dialogue is necessary to get deeper into who each person is. I so badly want to rewrite this entire movie’s dialogue.
It would also be easy to attribute the bizarre lines to the delivery, but I still do not think touching up the tone would help this. Trust is a valuable thing, yes. Everything about this situation is bizarre, yes. Basic communication is so simple here. I am all for an unbalanced relationship between the two families, but everyone’s words tell me they are on edge rather than just not trusting them at all.
The dialogue was so bad and frustrating that if it was slightly better in two, or three, scenes I would forgive some other issues. However, there are currently no plans for an immediate rewatch since I know I may cringe for another two hours.
Performances
The three leads are great actors. Ethan Hawke, Julia Roberts, and Mahershala Ali are all reliable names. Each one of them has at least one scene that feels utterly bizarre. I blame most of the writing and dialogue direction on this, but there was a lot going on.
While I was not a fan of Julia Roberts’ character through the majority of this, her performance was still good. Ethan Hawke was as Ethan Hawke as he can be. Clay felt like the comedic relief at times, but to me, it never totally detracted from the tone. At the end of everything that is still fine by me.
Mahershala Ali is probably my favorite character of this bunch. That bar is not very high throughout, but you will never hear my complain about Ali being on my screen. Since Amanda was the frustrating overly protective character and Clay was the loose middle character, George is good at keeping the composure and stability.
The three kids in this movie are fine. Myha’la was awkward, Charlie Evans was stale, and Farrah Mackenzie was doing child acting. All three were just as bizarre as their parents, but I can not totally fault them. Myha’la I can, but I do not really feel like it, so she is safe for now. To put it bluntly- all performances in this movie are somewhere between forgettable and good. My issue still lies with the dialogue and script, but I must admit some disappointment with what the talent involved came up with.
Plot
In a movie where the story is occurring through uncontrollable means, I do not see much of a point to keep the story going on a personal level. Amanda is the biggest offender of this. Look, I get it. You rent a home for the weekend, electronic communications start going wonky and all of a sudden the homeowners show up. It is not exactly a clean situation, so staying on your toes is a great idea. However, everyone needs to let it go past a certain point.
There are three plots through this movie. The main story sees the world quickly and strangely deteriorating. Fine. Beneath that is the issue of sharing the home. Okay, whatever. Rose (Mackenzie) has a continual plot to try and watch the finale of Friends. Sure. It takes too long for the families to become comfortable. After a certain point I stopped caring.
Only during the times of investigation or when the world was acting up was anything interesting for me. When the folks gather around the house and talk to each other, there is nothing I wanted more than skip forward. Again, the dialogue is awful, but at the same time I found it quite boring.
Plot (Continued)
Every moment that something unexplainable is happening is intriguing. Whether we are told what is happening or not, there is so much to figure out here. If there was a significant reduction of dialogue and conversation, Leave the World Behind would rip so much harder.
This is a strange movie and I am so on board with it. It breaks my soul when movies focus more on the humanity of the situation instead of the giant freaking monster they have in front of them. This is both literal and metaphorical. Granted, I understand we have to care about these people to want them to survive the strange, but it is hard to care when some real bonkers stuff is going down. The moral of this whole story is try not to get too excited whenever words are coming out of mouths.
Camerawork
Sam Esmail went absolutely mad with the silliness in camerawork. On the poster for the film there is a buck in the middle of a road that curves upward into a pile of white Teslas. Every element of that is on point. Leave the World Behind is littered with dramatic pans, exaggerated tilts, and long winding shots. Most of them worked for me. I thought they each cranked up the “Yeesh” filter a little more. Of course, some of the shots were too much, but that is a risk that felt worth taking.
Left Some Thoughts Behind
Without wasting an entire section on each item, there are a few things worth mentioning before we wrap up. The score was phenomenal. If composer Mac Quayle had not put his entire soul into this score, this movie would have been utter horse spit. I digress
“Dialogue bad,” he says for the ninetieth time. One aspect I purposefully neglected to mention in the dialogue portion was how everyone felt like they were a few syllables away from screaming something horribly racist. At any second- anyone could say something so horrible. Luckily this is definitely not that kind of movie.
Throughout the film there are several seed planted that either pay off or are left there to rot. Personally, the Friends subplot felt super annoying for a while, but when the film reaches its final moments I could not help but feel super pleased with it. Ambiguous and unresolved endings get under my skin sometimes, but I do not think this one is unresolved. Everything happened and what we needed to see, we saw. The twists and apocalyptic feeling are a good mix of what I can only describe as the bastard child of Parasite and White Noise. That is not a terrible combination if you ask me.
Leave the World Behind by Sam Esmail
One thing I admire about this movie is how clearly defined the good and bad elements are. The script is good, but the dialogue is awful. Camerawork and cinematography are cool and all, but I absolutely do not care about these characters. There are quite a few problems, but in the end I feel like this was a pretty worthwhile watch. Give it a shot and let me know. Leave the World Behind is somewhere between a 7.5 and an 8/10 and you can watch it on Netflix now!
