Summary

Leave the World Behind is a thrilling work of apocalyptic tension that explores how characters react to the end of the world. The stellar cast, including Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali, delivers great performances and explores themes of race and class tension. The film may lack some of the nuance of the novel but still provides a thought-provoking and dread-inducing tale that examines the familiar concept of escaping from it all.

Getting away from it all, in theory, can be a freeing thing. Shutting off your phone, unplugging the Wi-Fi, and truly being in the moment — it’s what we all want out of a vacation. That’s the idea Leave the World Behind begins with. Julia Roberts’ high-strung marketing exec Amanda wakes up her husband Clay (Ethan Hawke) and announces that she’s booked them a vacation, and they are leaving that morning. She figures if she packs the family’s things and has everything in order, it gets every obstacle out of the way that would lead them to reject the relaxing weekend. But when they get to the rural Long Island house adorned with slate gray wood floors, marble counters, and a locked liquor cabinet with a top-shelf selection, things begin to go terribly wrong. It’s certainly not what Amanda had in mind when she envisioned a relaxing weekend with her family.

Leave the World Behind is directed by Sam Esmail, who also adapted the screenplay from Rumaan Alam’s novel of the same name. That novel is a lyrical eco-thriller that excoriates race relations and class tensions in post-2016 America, using its literary bonafides as a Trojan horse for an apocalypse drama. It’s not so much concerned with the apocalypse as it is with how its characters react to it. Esmail’s adaptation may not be as elegant as Alam’s novel (despite what its sweeping camera movements would like you to think), but it’s a thrilling work of apocalyptic tension, utilizing its stellar cast and Netflix budget to widen the breadth of the novel’s vision.

Related Leave The World Behind Cast & Character Guide The 2023 Netflix psychological thriller movie Leave the World Behind features a star-studded cast, including Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali.

Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, and Myha’la in Leave the World Behind. 

Before the apocalypse interrupts Amanda’s vacation, though, there are two unexpected guests — Mahershala Ali’s George and Myha’la’s Ruth, a father-daughter duo who have escaped a blackout in the city and returned to their vacation home to take shelter from whatever is happening. Amanda is less than pleased, lobbing microaggressions left and right, going so far as to imply that she doesn’t believe a Black family could own such a nice house. Clay is more than happy to welcome George and Ruth, allowing them to stay. This conflict gives the first part of the film a tense undercurrent that propels the film toward its more cataclysmic story. The tensions — marital, generational, class, and racial — are all elements of Alam’s novel that the movie adapts with less bite, but it sets up dynamics that are thoughtfully explored throughout the film.

Leave the World Behind may pull some of its punches in favor of an easy out, but it’s still a thought-provoking, dread-inducing tale about the end of a world that has become all too familiar.

Ali and Roberts are unsurprisingly great, especially as Amanda and George bond over their predicament. Hawke gives nuanced life to Clay who, on paper, is not much more than an easy-going wannabe Bohemian. Myha’la steals every scene she’s in as Ruth, though, letting her character’s clear disdain for Amanda bubble up to the surface as she grieves the world crumbling around her. While there is rage rippling through Ruth, there is also a longing — for safety, comfort, and stability — coursing through her and Myha’la walks this tightrope with superb skill. Esmail makes a smart choice in changing Ruth and George’s relationship (in the novel, Ruth and George are an elderly married couple), creating a dynamic that stands in stark contrast to Amanda and Clay’s relationship with their children.

Whereas Ruth is plugged into what’s going on around her, Archie (Charlie Evans) and Rose (Farrah Mackenzie) are a bit more detached. Archie is obsessed with girls, particularly Taylor, who is staying an hour away in Sag Harbor, while Rose just wants to watch the last episode of Friends when the internet goes down. Rose is perhaps more attuned to what is happening around her, but the pair of siblings ultimately feel like stereotypes of how someone thinks Gen Z would react to the apocalypse, rather than a nuanced portrayal.

That lack of nuance ultimately bleeds into the apocalypse itself. The book opts to keep the end of the world a vague threat — is it climate disaster, politically motivated armageddon, or even something otherworldly? That ambiguity drives much of the horror of the first half of the film, but it eventually becomes clear that Leave the World Behind is pointing more directly at answers. This doesn’t rob the film of any impact; the apocalypse is terrifying thanks to Esmail’s withholding, and as the title’s multiple meanings come into play in both funny and morbid ways, the idea of getting away from it all becomes a terrifying possibility. Leave the World Behind may pull some of its punches in favor of an easy out, but it’s still a thought-provoking, dread-inducing tale about the end of a world that has become all too familiar.

Leave the World Behind is now streaming on Netflix. The film is 138 minutes long and rated R for language, some sexual content, drug use and brief bloody images.