The Big Picture

Just like the book, Sam Esmail’s film adaptation of Leave the World Behind leaves many questions unanswered. During an interview with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, Esmail and author Rumaan Alam discuss why ambiguity enhances the viewing experience. Leave the World Behind stars Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, and Myha’la. It’s currently available to stream on Netflix.

As someone who quite enjoys detailed lore and movie bibles, admittedly, I can be a tough sell when it comes to films with ambiguous endings. However, when a movie hits that sweet spot of offering up just enough while also inspiring you to consider the events of the film and what might happen next well after the credits roll, it’s the ultimate outcome. Rumaan Alam’s book Leave the World Behind has that effect, and now, so does the Sam Esmail film adaption for Netflix.

The movie follows Amanda (Julia Roberts), Clay (Ethan Hawke), and their two kids (Charlie Evans and Farrah Mackenzie) to a beautiful Long Island rental for an unplanned getaway. Late one night, there’s a knock at the door. It’s G.H. (Mahershala Ali) and Ruth (Myha’la). They claim to be the homeowners and explain they had to return unexpectedly due to a blackout in the city. With no Internet or cell service and with the television in Emergency Alert System mode, they’re force to ride out the uncertainty together, blindly making decisions based on the possibility that a catastrophic disaster could be unfolding beyond their home.

With Leave the World Behind now streaming on Netflix, I got the chance to have a brief chat with Esmail and Alam to dig into the adaptation process and their choice to leave many questions unanswered at the end of the film. Find out why they think that makes for a stronger reading and viewing experience in the video at the top of this article or in the interview transcript below.

Leave the World Behind A family’s getaway to a luxurious rental home takes an ominous turn when a cyberattack knocks out their devices, and two strangers appear at their door. Release Date November 22, 2023 Director Sam Esmail

PERRI NEMIROFF: First off, congratulations. The movie is exceptional. Rumaan, I’ll come your way first and I’ll preface this question by saying that the book is also exceptional, but is there anything about seeing the story unfold on screen that amplified something for you, made a concept or a scene more powerful than you ever realized it could be?

RUMAAN ALAM: That’s a great question. What I was writing, I think, in pursuit of was a feeling of unsteadiness and the idea that the story is sort of shifting under the feet of the reader constantly. It was such an interesting experience to watch Sam’s movie and experience that as a viewer. I know this story inside and out, it is from my head, and I was still able to access that. And so I think it reminded me, I’ve heard Sam talk a lot about tone, is the word you use when you talk about this, and it’s been interesting for me to think about tone, to think about that particular noun and how I’m gonna apply that in the work I’m doing going forward. I just finished a book and usually I think of it maybe as mood or atmosphere, but these are all sort of synonyms for the same thing. I think what you’ve said is that if you get that right, then everything else falls into place, and I think that’s really an accurate and interesting insight artistically.

I’m very much looking forward to checking out that next book now!

ALAM: Thank you.

Image via Netflix

Sam, for you, in the adaptation process, did you ever think about doing any cutaways to other people beyond these two families? One particular visual that’s burned in my brain from the book is when they’re doing laundry and they mention the laundry facility that they go to and what happens to the person that runs it. Did you ever consider adding something like that to the film?

SAM ESMAIL: No, because I think when you think about something that works so well in the literary medium, I felt, for me, once you do that in a sort of cinematic approach, you break some sort of spell when you break POV like that. Just to kind of piggyback on tone, I remember the feeling that I wanted was that this movie kind of starts off like a dream and it turns into a nightmare. That’s a very sort of visceral feeling that I’ve experienced and I wanted to really channel that and I think the way to do that is to stick with these people and to not ever escape the borders of their world. There’s claustrophobia in there, but there’s also this, like you said, this sand shifting underneath their feet. You just don’t quite know what’s outside of those four corners of their world, and I think that just added to this nightmarish quality to the film that I think you would have lost if you cut away to other people.

The End of ‘Leave the World Behind’ Is the Beginning of a Conversation

I’m gonna end with what is essentially the million-dollar question with a story like this. What is it like preserving mystery and challenging viewers to engage while also making sure that the story is satisfying and offering enough?

ESMAIL: Going into it and reading the book and knowing how the book kind of beautifully handles ambiguity in the end, I remember as a reader, and then thinking about the movie, I love movies where the end of the film is the beginning of a conversation. When you answer all these questions, it closes the door on that, and for me, that robs the audience of something. My favorite moviegoing experience is leaving the theater and going to a coffee shop and arguing with my friends for two hours about what it all meant, hearing other people’s interpretations. And I also just think that is sort of reflective of life. We face ambiguities all the time, and sure, it can be frustrating, sure, it could even feel unsatisfying, but there’s something really authentic and true to life about it that you can’t take that away from and I really wanted to commit to that. And again, it was sort of your book’s ending that really made me inspired to kind of keep that in the film.

ALAM: That’s kind of you. I love that the film retains that. I think it is a gesture of respect to the audience. I think that there’s a lot of cultural forms that may, without meaning to, talk down to an audience a little bit, and I think audiences can handle stuff that is difficult, that is a question mark. I think the adaptation so really beautifully walks that line where I know the book, of course, but I’m sitting there having this sort of thrilling experience as a viewer, and then I turned to my husband after we saw the first screening and I was like, “We have to discuss this.” What a great feeling! What a great feeling when a work of art can provide that.

Leave the World Behind is available to stream on Amazon Prime in the U.S.

Watch on Netflix