Leave the World Behind (2023) || You Will Wrestle With The Not Knowing

This is one of those movies I watch, sigh and say “favoritism made me do it.” For the love or should I say admiration for Julia Roberts. I don’t think I’ve seen any of her films in a long while so coming across this one, I didn’t think twice, I just watched.

But, whatever I later got from this film wasn’t what I expected from it. I don’t know what I really expected but I honestly didn’t think it was an ‘end of the world’ kinda film. I’ll also warn you; it’s not your typical “end of the world” movie. It’s not filled with explosions nor is it about saving humanity in some grand heroic gesture. It rather focuses on a small group of people, one house and the terrifying not knowing of what’s happening beyond the walls.

The setup is pretty simple: Amanda (Julia Roberts) and her husband Clay (Ethan Hawke) rent a luxurious home for a family getaway. But their seemingly peaceful vacation gets disrupted when the owners of the house, GH(Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la), show up unexpectedly, claiming that a sudden blackout has knocked out power across the city. With no internet, no news and strange occurrences piling up (animals behaving oddly, tech failures, planes falling from the sky), the tension isn’t just about what’s happening “out there”, it’s also about trust, fear and who they choose to believe when nothing makes sense.

The film leans into paranoia and never gives you easy answers which may likely frustrate you. The characters were just as clueless as I was and the longer it went, the more I felt that creeping dread of being cut off from the world.

Performance-wise, Julia Roberts delivers. She’s tense, suspicious and layered. Mahershala Ali^{first impression of him}, carries a calm but commanding presence that makes you hang onto every word that comes out of his mouth. I was really trusting him to fix the situation because of how collected he seemed. Ethan Hawke plays Clay as almost painfully passive, which works anyway because it highlights how unprepared most of us would really be if we were to ever be in same situation.

The film isn’t fast and I think that’s deliberate.^{I watched it at 1.5x speed anyway}

Not going to lie, I found it too slow. At some point I was frustrated and that’s mostly because this movie avoids giving a neat, tied-up explanation for whatever the hell was happening. I hated the idea of wrestling with the not knowing, just like the characters. I needed a freaking explanation.

Nevertheless, it’s sleek visually but unsettling. You know, little touches like a herd of deer, the silence of empty skies, the flicker of dying screens just sticks with you. It’s less about spectacle and more about mood.

Would I recommend it? Yes but with a caveat. If you want a big disaster movie energy, you will be let DOWN!. But if you’re into slow-burn psychological thrillers that poke at your anxieties about technology, society and trust, then go for it.

Rating? ⅗.