Aaliah Patel
Adapted from Rumaan Alam’s novel, Leave the World Behind is one of Netflix’s most recent thrillers that has captivated audiences for its apocalyptic scenes and dubious ending.
There is much to unpack as the movie’s unnerving story leaves us with many questions. But what is even more scary is how real it feels.
Two families. One house. One world.
Produced by the Obamas, Leave the World Behind (2023) follows Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) taking her family on a spontaneous getaway to a Long Island mansion to escape her Brooklyn life. Amanda, her husband Clay (Ethan Hawke) and their children Rose (Farrah Mackenzie) and Archie (Charlie Evans) settle into the lavish apartment, but soon odd disturbances begin to occur.
“Forced to live together, the families encounter disruptions from cyber attacks to natural disasters”
One night, a knock at the door disturbs the family, bringing them into an awkward encounter with the mansion owners G.H. (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la Herrold) who seek security at the mansion. Amanda and Clay are reluctant to allow them into the house due to the strange appearance, but they end up staying anyway. Forced to live together, the families encounter disruptions from cyber attacks to natural disasters, forcing them to depend on each other.
‘Leave the world behind’ is everything you want from a horror – eerie confusion, anxious disorientation, children staring at woodland, and animals going bonkers 👌
— Daisy Dixon (@daisyldixon) January 17, 2024
A reflection of the world we live in
Leave the World Behind presents themes from technological dependence to media escapism and world disasters. The film feels like an intrusion into and interrogation of the world we live in today. Through realism, it holds truth and foreshadows humanity’s future.
Things really feel like that Netflix movie Leave the World Behind Us, because the world is really crumbling around us.
— F (@thefatimatoure) January 15, 2024
The film hints that a cyber attack from an unknown entity leads to strange occurrences from a ship crashing upon a mainland beach to a convoy of Teslas crashing into one another. Yet the audience does not know for certain whether it is the cyber attack that is interfering in the world – this is just one interpretation presented by G.H. However, today we hear stories of driverless cars, their dangers and the unreliable malfunctions of these new technologies.
“makes us question our cyber dependence and the danger of these technologies in a rapidly evolving digital age”
In the film, a large cyber force is able to program and disrupt the route of the White Tesla cars making them head speedily down the same road and robotically crash into each other. These cars almost wipe out the Sandford family as they attempt to escape Long Island. This scene makes us question our cyber dependence and the danger of these technologies in a rapidly evolving digital age.
Entertainment as escapism
Another central theme of the film is the dependency on entertainment as a form of escape from the real world. This is seen most with the Rose who obsesses over the sitcom Friends (1994). She is desperate to watch the last episode while the world is – quite literally – crumbling around her. Rose finds a bunker comfortably filled with junk food and television where she is able to complete her programme.
“We give up living in the real world for scrolling on our phones”
We cannot deny that whenever we want escapism or are tired of our daily lives, we indulge in television. It comforts us and allows us to temporarily forget real live problems. We watch television to forget about the conflicts that happen every day, to forget about the complex issues we encounter with people, technology and ourselves. In our digital age, we often do not live in the present. We give up living in the real world for scrolling on our phones and watching television shows, filling our lives with fiction to distract us from reality, and this is exactly what Rose is doing. Maybe you watched Leave the World Behind to do the same. Kind of scary isn’t it?
The Doomsday Clock – a coincidence?
On 24th January 2023, the Doomsday Clock moved to 90 seconds to midnight, which is the closest it has ever been placed to midnight.
For those unfamiliar with this clock, it was conceived in 1947 by American scientists. It is a symbol representing how close humanity is to destroying the world we live in by dangerous technologies of our own making. Midnight symbolises the theoretical point of annihilation caused by threats such as climate change, technology, illnesses, war and political tensions.
The Doomsday Clock explained
pic.twitter.com/p4kwpwCXWG— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) January 26, 2024
“It feels like an apocalyptic representation of the world we live in”
Why do I mention this clock? It was the closest to annihilation last year. In a quick succession of events, the film touches upon so many of the apocalyptic horrors and threats that ultimately lead to annihilation and destruction. When I connected these two creations it opened my eyes to an extra dimension to the film where everything feels too real. It feels like an apocalyptic representation of the world we live in.
Leave the World Behind is certainly an interesting thriller full of horrors and hard truths (if you choose to see them). Though I think it has a very annoying ending, I still believe it is worth a watch – but maybe not if you get chills easily!
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Featured image courtesy of Gilles Lambert via Unsplash. No changes have been made to this image. Image licence found here.
