The setup is there, the payoff not

★★ 1/2 out of ★★★★

Leave the World Behind (2023)

Runtime: 141 minutes

MPAA: Rated R for language, some sexual content, drug use and brief bloody images.

In a usual post-apocalyptic film, we'll get characters stranded in a city, fighting zombies, aliens, robots or in war. There'll be action sequences, jumpscares, generic exposition and sometimes incomplete endings that require additional installments.

Leave the World Behind introduces a unique take on this overdone genre, primarily focusing on a family who's disconnected from the outside world as they're on a vacation, and instead scrambles around the vacation house, which serves as the primary setting of the film. It's a piece that has great ideas, performances, and moments, but fails to coalesce into something satisfying or impactful.

Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) rents a vacation house for her family, consisting of husband Clay (Ethan Hawke), and children Archie (Charlie Evans) and Rose (Farrah Mackenzie). They settle into the vacation house, exploring the architecture, rooms and cabinets of the area, while the children immediately head to the pool.

As suggested by the continuously ominous score, on oil tanker runs ashore, causing a certain degree of panic and confusion. At the same time, cellphones and telecommunications stop working, and it's barely dismissed as a temporary issue. During midnight, two strangers G.H. Scott (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha'la) make an unexpected appearance, claiming the house to be theirs. This causes some distrust on Amanda's side, as the situation elevates with every unsettling piece of information.

Director Sam Esmail is never short of supply in terms of mood, atmosphere and suspense. Pieces of information and ideas scattered throughout the narrative provide a genuine and steady current of suspense, driving the narrative in an intriguing manner. However, when subplots spawn and it alternates between them, the momentum and tension dissipates as the pace begins to lag.

Despite the emotional stakes not being favoured, Leave the World Behind is sufficiently interesting as a commentary on human behaviour. While there's an understandable level of mistrust, distrust, and concealment of observations, we come to realise that even though Amanda expresses her contempt for humans, in events like this, it's necessary for us to cooperate and accompany each other for our survival.

For most of the time, we're also focused on Amanda and her family's perspective, and strange events like cars crashing into each other on the highway, hundreds of animals appearing beyond the pool, and strange high-pitched noises raise the sense of mystery. It also raises some curiosity about George (G.H. Scott) and Ruth, as several conversations between them suggest that they have some knowledge about the event that the family doesn't. Even though there's an inconsistency to George as a character, Ali plays it with a fine degree of conviction and nuance.

While the twist is unpredictable and surprising, writers Esmail and Rumaan Alam can't quite figure out how to end their film with a bang. Much of the ideas and individual moments are enhanced by the mystery and technical elements including the dizzying cinematography or the foreboding score, but they seem to have left the story, situations and stakes hanging, without any resolution or comment on the apocalypse. Even though there's enough to make you anticipate the next step of the narrative, you will likely be disappointed at the end to find that they have long given up on the story.

Several conversations between George and Ruth suggest the idea of racial discrimination that is ignored for the rest of the film. While the interactions between everyone feel natural and its potential drives the piece forward, it is ultimately let down by a lack of care into what eventually happens.

You can leave the world behind, but you can never leave your film behind.