2023-12-11 05:06:25
Twenty-three years after winning the Oscar with “Erin Brockovich” and 33 years after leaving her mark on millions of men and women around the planet with that romantic comedy classic titled “Pretty Woman,” Julia Roberts appears before more than 220 million Netflix subscribers with a diametrically different proposal, but one that will surely have an interesting impact.
The 56-year-old actress stars in “Leaving the World Behind,” a seasoned apocalyptic drama directed by Sam Esmail. It is a film adaptation of the novel that Rumaan Alam published back in 2021. In the 138-minute film, Roberts plays Amanda Sandford, a distrustful publicist who, from one moment to the next, rewards her husband and children with a vacation in a beautiful beach house, without imagining that what should be something magical, turns into a “vacation from hell.”
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In Sam Esmail’s film everything seems ready to quickly establish comparisons. Not even five minutes into the story and Amanda has already dared to claim that she “hates everyone,” while her husband, college professor Clay Sandford (Ethan Hawke), is rather a mild-mannered, friendly man. conciliator. In the second line, the teenage son, Archie (Charlie Evans), exudes the pragmatism and selfishness that characterizes many teenagers. Something completely different happens with the best one in the house, little Rose (Farrah Mackenzie), who lives glued to the broadcasts of the sitcom “Friends”, “the only thing that can make her happy.”
Each of these four small worlds that make up the Sandford family relaxes on the beach until the first of the many extraordinary incidents that we will witness from now on occurs. This chain of events opens with the appearance of an immense ship that runs aground just centimeters from our protagonists. Sheltering at home, a ‘blackout’ leaves vacationers without Internet. Nothing seems to worry them much yet, until GH Scott (two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la) knock on the door. They were both leaving an opera and the aforementioned incident aborted their plans to return to the city, so they decide to ask their ‘tenants’ for help.
A scene from “Leaving the World Behind”, Netflix’s new bet with an apocalyptic tone.
Easily identifiable as an apocalyptic proposal, “Leaving the World Behind” does not imagine an epidemic of some novel virus capable of altering the physiognomy of the planet’s inhabitants or, worse still, of disappearing them. The story here is more linked to the consequences that a ‘technological chaos’ could unleash around the planet. At the beginning, of course, in the magnitude of each protagonist. Rose suffers because the TV is not responding and she cannot watch “Friends.” Clay has lost the ability to use GPS guidance to drive to the nearest ‘town’. Amanda, for her part, has completely lost her cell phone signal.
Parallel to these ‘mild’ inconveniences, so to speak, Sam Esmail’s film presents a series of small extra-natural elements: a herd of deer surrounds the Sandfords’ beach house. A flock of flamingos invades the pool on a night where the rain seems about to break the sky. Seen together, these manifestations provide a higher level of tension for characters who, stripped of all their technological implements, seem disoriented and fearful.
Before analyzing the next level of complexity faced by the characters in this film, it is worth mentioning that, just as Amanda (Roberts) plays a key role in much of the film, so does the award-winning Mahershala Ali as GH Scott. Knowing not only the area where his home is located, this character exercises undeniable control over the most complex situations of the plot. “I need to know if you’re on my side for what’s coming,” he says at some point to Clay, who on the opposite side plays an almost completely passive role, at times almost a spectator.
The ship running aground in a scene from “Leaving the World Behind.”
The succession of these extra-natural events and the revelation of some details of the ‘technological blackout’ – which, rather than giving calm to our characters, at times seems to push them to the limit – follows a path parallel to what could be located in the space of ‘drama’. staff’. Amanda reacts with suspicion and harshness when, at first, she doesn’t know who knocked on her door and now asks him to ‘come back to her house’ (GH Scott). Not only does she look bad, but she also treats Ruth almost contemptuously, a young woman who is insightful and mature enough to know how to get away from her at the right time. Two points of tension below, Archie sentences her sister with a “better go find something else that will make you happy,” when she expresses her sadness because she has not been able to see the outcome of an episode of “Friends.” ”.
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Exposure to unexpected events can generate all kinds of reactions in humans. Amanda and Ruth surprisingly team up to yell furiously at the herd of deer that they believe threatens their lives. On the other hand, Clay does not hesitate to speed up his car when a stranger screams for help in the middle of the road. This same character, but already accompanied by GH, stars in a moment soaked in reality. Desperately looking for medicine, they arrive at the house of Danny (Kevin Bacon), a town resident who ‘foreseen’ the emergency and, shotgun in hand, defends the little that he was able to buy solely “for his own people.”
Although we could get lost in that combination of natural facts and consequences of a ‘technological blackout’, it will be impossible not to perceive the political tone of Sam Esmail’s film. Danny – notably played by Bacon – asks visitors to step away from his front door and talk to him ‘by the car’. But the message does not stop there: outside his house is the American flag, an element that could be seen as common, but that, if accompanied by the barrage of presumptions that this character expels from his mouth, apparently a product of the misinformation who is exposed, could easily be mistaken for a ‘Capitol stormer’ (“Nothing makes much sense now. When the world doesn’t make sense I can do what is rational, which is protect my people”).
The main protagonists of Netflix’s new bet.
Finally, perhaps a little far from the political, but not from the personal/social, Amanda (Roberts) and Clay (Hawke) also contribute to the questioning of a society that, in the first place, seems to have the ‘I’ as the first , second and third of his priorities (“We screw each other all the time, and we think there is no problem because we use paper straws and order free-range chicken”) and, finally, he suffers from a perhaps excessive dependence on technology (“ I can’t do anything without my cell phone and my GPS. I’m useless!”).
Although it seems to extend a little longer than necessary, and presents situations that are not always well ordered, “Leaving the World Behind” is a valid staging of how contemporary society can react to situations that perhaps today appear only in novels.
Happily.
LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND/NETFLIX
Director: Sam Esmail
List: Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Myhala’la, Farrah Mackenzie, Kevin Bacon
Synopsis: A family’s vacation takes a chilling turn when two strangers show up in the middle of the night seeking refuge from a cyber attack that becomes more and more terrifying. In this situation, everyone will have to assume their role in a world that is falling apart.
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