Faced with an Apocalypse, 'Leave the World Behind' Knows Exactly What We'd Do

By Dustin Rowles | Film | October 2, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | Film | October 2, 2023 |

The trailer for Leave the World Behind, the first feature film from Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, looks like he tossed M. Night Shyamalan, Jordan Peele, and Alfred Hitchcock into a blender and took a quick, dizzying pan shot of the blender while it whirred to life. That’s not an insult. If you’re going to borrow, borrow from the best, and Leave the World Behind even looks a little like the last two films from Shyamalan and Peele, Knock at the Cabin and Nope, respectively.

The source material — Rumaan Alam’s novel of the same name — possesses those same ingredients: It’s a couple (here played by Ethan Hawke and Julia Roberts) who take their kids to an Airbnb for an idyllic vacation. But when there’s a blackout in New York City, and the owners of the Airbnb return to ride it out, the vacation home turns into a prison. The novel is less about the apocalypse itself (the details are vague) and more about what the average upper-middle-class family might do in the face of the end of the world.

The answer? Mostly nothing. What would most of us do? Honestly? We probably watch TV and eat what’s left in the pantry until the end of the world comes for us. We can’t all be Daryl Dixons.

The reality is that this could be really good. Or Sam Esmail may literally be Netflix’s algorithmic equivalent of Shyamalan and Peele, and Leave the World Behind ends up being a mushy paste of moody shots, paranoid reaction shots, and slow pacing. We’ll find out when it arrives in November.