HIGH-TECH CRISES

NEW YORK RESORT NOT THE PERFECT GETAWAY

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Julia Roberts creates an overly concerned mother with an existential crisis in Leave The World Behind (2023).

The internal malaise of the protagonist gradually becomes muted by something bigger, like an extinction event or global Armageddon, but no one is all that sure what is transpiring outside the safety of the family home.

Director Sam Esmail personifies Roberts as an existential crises for all of humanity when casting the actor as Amanda Sandford.

Ethan Hawke and Mahershala Ali costar with Myha’la, Farrah Mackenzie and Charlie Evans. Kevin Bacon has a limited part as a well-prepared survivalist hording supplies.

Amanda initially wants to take care of herself by escaping the city for a luxurious beach getaway just outside of the New York city limits. The entire family soon finds more important issues to worry about that are not in their ability to control, like a runaway oil tanker and a fleet of self-driving Teslas.

Clay, played by Hawke, is a supportive husband that realizes the need to relax a bit by being carefree along the beach resort. When the otherworldly events start happening, he tries to maintain stability in his family by minimizing the seriousness of events and rationalizing what is happening.

Of course, all the computers, smart phones and tablets get knocked off line, which sends everyone into emergency mode without the instantaneous news updates and social media posts that people have become conditioned to receive.

Esmail adds an extra social dynamic when the owners of the short-term accommodation return and want to spend the night in their own house because of the crisis occurring in New York City and along the Expressway.

Amanda proves to be more than a neurotic when the owners are found to be black without having met them, and so without an ability to trust them inside with her two children.

Mahershala Ali plays Mr. Scott, who shows up unannounced at his own door with his socially aware daughter Ruth, played by Myha’la. Ruth is certain that Amanda’s hesitation in letting them into the house is because of the colour difference in their skin.

Leave the World Behind would have been just another apocalyptic paranoid fantasy but Esmail covers all the up-to-date threats like a sonic weapon and the loss of control of artificial intelligence, while Roberts and Ali enter into a dialogue that breaches the racial divide.

Ali plays a kind of high-minded upper class character who has benefitted financially from society and, as a result, proceeds with caution and tolerance toward others as the crises begins to accelerate into a more significant event.

When comparing the coping skills of Amanda with that of Clay, Amanda projects her inner turmoil onto the racial issues until she can trust that the entire situation she has found herself in will not endanger her family.

Everything is worthwhile when Roberts shows the camera her patented smile while dancing to music from a record player in the ballroom of the luxurious seaside home.

Leave the World Behind is a Netflix Original.