Leave the World Behind stars Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, and Ethan Hawke and was directed by Sam Esmail.

It’s an adaptation of Rumaan Alam’s 2020 best-selling novel of the same name. It’s about a family who decides they need to get away from the big city and take a break so they rent a luxurious home for the weekend with their kids, Archie (Charlie Evans) and Rose (Farrah Mackenzie).

Soon after their arrival, things begin to go a little weird and things get weirder when 2 strangers, G.H. (Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la) — show up on the front doorstep in the middle of the night claiming to be the homeowners and bearing news of a mysterious cyberattack and seeking refuge in their house. The two families co-exist as the world begins to unravel around them and they begin to understand how and why the world is collapsing.

In an interesting move, the movie is broken up into chapters which gives it a more serialized or novel feeling and also wryly injects commentary on race and class which also adds another level of tension while the characters are coming to grips with the severity of the collapse of the digital world around them and subsequently the free world as they know it.

Leave the World Behind features fantastic performances from everyone involved but specifically, Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali have particularly great chemistry during one of their scenes featuring just the 2 of them as G.H. tells her a story about a friend of his in Defense. Right at the end when she says ” I don’t think I like you anymore” sent chills down my spine because it’s at that moment, we know what happened. Or at least we think we do.

Leave the World Behind was an incredibly satisfying film. As a person who loves horror films, nothing scares me more in reality than the idea of society crumbling whether it comes from an unseen virus or external sources disrupting all we know. The question it poses of “What happens to us when the technology we’ve all become so reliant on comes to a stop?” is truly frightening. Like Ethan Hawke’s character – I’m utterly useless in an area I’m unfamiliar with if I don’t have my GPS. It’s a thrilling ride we take with these characters but, I’m not sure how much I love the ending. These kinds of movies are always so difficult to wrap up because as the viewer, you want more context to answer your questions but sometimes these questions are best left unsaid I guess and I strongly suggest you check it out.

If you’ll excuse me – I think I’m long overdue for a map studying session. And perhaps it’s time to start stocking up on supplies.

Leave the World Behind is available on Netflix right now.

Kaneda