Based on a novel by Rumaan Alam, Leave The World Behind is arguably just as well-known now for being produced by Barack and Michelle Obama as it is for being written and directed by Sam Esmail. It proved quite divisive when released just over a month ago, but I'm going to say that it's definitely worth your time, if only for the fact that none of the main cast members put a foot wrong with their performances.
The premise is quite simple. Amanda and Clay Sandford head away for a peaceful vacation, two teenaged kids in tow. Things soon start to get a bit strange though, particularly when some time at the beach is interrupted by a huge ship crashing into the shore. They get even stranger, and more tense, when G. H. Scott and his daughter, Ruth, turn up on the doorstep of the holiday home, claiming to be the owner in need of shelter after a major incident has caused havoc in the city. Clay is quite welcoming and easygoing about the whole thing, but Amanda immediately has her guard up.
If there's one major criticism I could directed at Leave The World Behind it's the fact that nothing seems as interestingly ambiguous as it could have been. The first half is much more interesting than the rest of it, although there's plenty of decent individual moments to still make it worth the 138-minute runtime. Of course, some of that may be down to my response to the casting, and the way that Esmail is happy to have certain characters be so cold and spiky that you automatically hope for others to prove their misanthropy wrong.
Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke are the Sandfords, and their children are played by Farrah Mackenzie and Charlie Evans. Everyone is perfect in roles that allow them to have a number of fun and interesting interactions with others onscreen, even if Mackenzie's character is motivated most of the time by a surprisingly understandable need to find a way to watch the final episodes of Friends, something familiar and comforting as the situation around her grows more chaotic and alien. Evans has the least to do, although even he gets to make an impact in the third act with the journey that his character goes on, but both Hawke and Roberts are as watchable as ever, with the latter seeming to relish a role that allows her to retain a cool and spiky demeanour for most of her screentime. As the Scotts, both Mahershala Ali and Myha'la are brilliant, dealing with a spiralling situation that they know is going to be exacerbated by the attitudes and prejudices of people acting rashly while driven by fear. Ali's character really knows the value of keeping people calm and pro-active, but he struggles to keep others on the same page. There's also a good little turn from Kevin Bacon, delivering one of his best performances in a while as someone else preparing for what he sees is a major storm brewing, to put it mildly.
The first big project from Esmail since his huge TV success (and I encourage everyone reading this to check out the brilliant and thought-provoking Mr. Robot), Leave The World Behind is enjoyably ambitious and messy. It's a melting point of talking points, with at least one scene sticking in your mind because of it being impressively terrifying for the cinematic strangeness and horrific implications, but doesn't ever really turn into something completely satisfying. I started to suspect that would be the case at about the halfway mark though, and I'm not sure of any other way the film should have ended.
It may make you a bit more anxious than the latest world news and ongoing daily dumpster fires going on around us already do, but I still think people should give this a go. It doesn't ever become more than the sum of its parts, but some of those parts are simply brilliant.
7/10
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