Raised on 90s disaster movies, it wouldn't be unfair for me to write them off as bombastic spectacles that centre around heroism and some triumphant male (Will Smith or Bruce Willis) saving the day. But like all genres, there are entries which try to do something different. Leave the World Behind has more in common with the recent Knock at the Cabin Door, in its lack of optimism. We watch as an isolated family slowly starts to piece together that something horrible may be happening in the world and struggles to know how to deal with it. Instead of "rising to the occasion" our heroes flail and mostly fail as they slowly begin to accept that not everything is going to be okay.
Writer/director Esmail handles certain aspects of this better than others. He is really good at building the sense of doom and creating terrifying moments of dread that are squarely grounded in reality. He doesn't handle the talky moments as effectively. His script feels a little heavy handed at times and the conversations are not always as organic as one might want. His characters are all a little typed, fitting into rather neat boxes. But I will give his script credit for having them behave very realistically despite their two-dimensionality. Their conversations, while a bit clunky at times, are very honest and thought provoking. The best parts of the film are the pieces the characters are not saying. The cast helps with this as they are all strong and give good performances, showing us more of what is going on for these people than just what they say.
Esmail uses his camera to upend things quite a few times and despite how on the nose this feels it is very effective. I did feel disconcerted through most of Leave the World Behind. There are set pieces (planes crashing, tankers slamming into shores) and they are used judiciously, without going over the top. I'll also give the film credit for sticking the landing. He doesn't solve the problem or save our heroes. His ending balances a real bleakness with an almost defiant moment of hope, if small. I like the ambiguity the film leaves us with, showing us there may be options for the protagonists, but not confirming if they will be able to exploit them.
Perhaps Leave the World Behind could have been a bit subtler at times, but overall it is the sort of movie that will give you enough to keep you wondering and asking questions and that in the end is a strength.
Leave the World Behind
Starring: Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Myha'la, Kevin Bacon
Writer/Director: Sam Esmail
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