I watch very few films these days, rarely finding contemporary offerings satisfying. However, sometimes the hype surrounding a release injects enough curiosity and I tune in. When Leave the World Behind landed on Netflix I had read enough positive...
I watch very few films these days, rarely finding contemporary offerings satisfying. However, sometimes the hype surrounding a release injects enough curiosity and I tune in. When Leave the World Behind landed on Netflix I had read enough positive commentary from viewers to sit down and stream, even setting it up on our now rarely used ‘home cinema’ system. This film review started brewing due to my somewhat confused reaction as to what the writers and producers had hoped to achieve.
The premise of the film is thus: a wealthy family living in New York book a last minute holiday in a luxury rental house on Long Island, and then a tech apocalypse occurs.
Mum and Dad (Amanda and Clay), their 16 year old son (Archie) and 10 year old daughter (Rose) are all typically into their tech – phones apps, games, streaming. The holiday house, when they arrive, pleases them and the kids immediately jump into the swimming pool. All admire the deer spotted in the garden. When internet access is lost they assume this will be rectified.
The family make a trip to a nearby beach where the first dramatic set piece occurs – a tanker is spotted making a bee line for the beach where it runs aground, scattering tourists.
Late that evening two strangers turn up at the rented house, claiming to be the owner (George) and his daughter (Ruth). Amanda is clearly racist, suspecting them of lying as they are dark skinned. Despite her misgivings, Clay allows the pair to stay. Ruth is unhappy that she and her father are expected to sleep in the basement, her in the bed and George on the floor.
Now, maybe I’m wrong, but if a man is financially successful enough to own at least two luxury properties (he lives in a better New York neighbourhood than his temporary renters, describing Amanda and Clay’s city place as in a pleasantly ‘affordable’ area, which annoys Amanda) and if he and his daughter have keys to parts of the property not made accessible to visitors, as is shown, surely there would have been a more comfortable place for them to sleep in this enormous property? I’m still pondering, given their apparent circumstances, why they would rent it out in the first place.
Anyway, this is fiction so lets go with the flow.
The next day, alerts briefly appear on phones warning that hackers are responsible for the strange outages and what this has caused. Clay attempts to drive to town for information but, cast as a bit useless despite being a professor, gets lost without his GPS. George visits a neighbouring property, finding it empty and damaged. Here we get the next dramatic set piece – planes falling out of the sky with body parts and belongings scattered everywhere. George finds a satellite phone but cannot get a connection, suggesting even the satellites in space have been attacked.
By now we have seen: dead bodies, panicking people, and wildlife behaving strangely – upset, perhaps by an intermittent, piercing noise (also blamed when Archie’s teeth start to fall out). Amanda decides they need to leave Long Island but finds the freeway blocked by crashed Teslas – empty, self driving models heading for the same space. This set piece has a comic aspect, the avoidance of incoming cars as the family make their escape reminiscent of a computer game.
I’m not sure this film is supposed to be a comedy though. The storyline is clearly a warning that humanity is too reliant on tech that is fallible. Much like Don’t Look Up brought to the fore modern man’s inability to see beyond his immediate, shallow concerns, so Leave the World Behind is a reminder that ‘smart’ devices rely on computerised controllers and we know – surely by now we all know – computers are susceptible to hackers and cyber attacks.
Ruth and Archie are shallow stereotypes. She is the tattooed and pierced, vape smoking, cynical young woman, cognisant of Amanda’s racism and Archie’s lust but doing little other than making snarky comments. Archie is a sixteen year old who acts younger – in bed early, no attempt to join adult conversation about tech issues he surely has knowledge of. Even his sexual reaction to pretty, young females lacks nuance.
Rose is given a more interesting part to play but this is overdone. It is she who worries about the approaching tanker and the weird behaviour of the wildlife, growing frustrated when nobody pays attention to her concerns – when do adults truly listen to children? Unlike her brother, Rose’s actions and reactions put her as older than her years, including, surely, her interest in the sitcom Friends.
Amanda is portrayed as disliking other people – her job is in marketing so she is aware how easy it is to manipulate how humans act and think. She wants her family to enjoy their holiday, which includes buying her husband cigarettes despite his attempts not to smoke them (the possibility of sex is, however, dismissed).
George could have been a more intriguing character had different threads been explored – the flirting scene with Amanda came across as distasteful given his wife’s likely death in a crashed plane. It is he who is aware of what this cyber attack could result in due to his dealings with the uber wealthy and their preparations for such an event – the well stocked, underground bunkers they have available. He admits he left the city so hurriedly having been given a brief warning by a client, one whose name would be well known to the family if revealed.
In one scene we see the city burning, highlighting there is now no return.
All of this offers pause for thought but surely nothing new? Doesn’t everyone understand that buying such things as ‘smart’ devices and self driving cars are acceptance of ceding control (alongside personal data harvesting)? Those who have made their money from such developments will be well aware they need a get out plan.
The big disaster scenes were not engaging enough to cover the shallow characterisations in this film. A slight shift and it could have been satire, a parody on the power granted to the dissociated, big name tech bosses. I fear, however, the film creators intended it to be serious, and that would have required more empathy for what was going on rather than despair that more people don’t already see clearly how foolish humanity is being in once again being bribed with new shiny toys into doing as we are told by those making money through unethical means.
So then, a reminder, if it is needed, that the modern tech ‘enhanced’ life is built on sand foundations, and the move away from mechanical to computer controlled will have consequences. A somewhat simplistic film whose gloss did not make up for its lack of nuance.
Leave the World Behind is based on a novel by Rumaan Alam.
