I love post-apocalyptic science fiction, especially those stories that follow the collapse of civilization as it happens. My favorite SF novel of this type is Earth Abides by George R. Stewart from 1949 and the television show Survivors from the BBC in 1975. I’ve written about some of my favorite post-apocalyptic short stories here. I’ve also written about the theme many times because it’s one of my favorite science fictional themes in case you want to check out my fanatical interest.
So, when I watched Leave the World Behind on Netflix last night, I got overly excited because it’s a new and interesting take on this old theme. Every generation has their own philosophical thoughts about the possible collapse of civilization. What made Leave the World Behind even more relevant was I had just watched this YouTube video (watch below). I highly recommend you take the time to watch it too — it will add to your paranoid theories about what’s happening in Leave the World Behind.
Joe Scott explains how there’s a philosophical movement that believes we should hurry the collapse of civilization so we can get busy rebuilding everything. I think that’s insane. The philosophy is called accelerationism, and I don’t know if the producers of Leave the World Behind were using accelerationism as a cause or not, but it’s worth thinking about.
Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) wakes up and decides her New York City family should rent a house out on the island for the weekend. She doesn’t even ask her husband Clay (Ethan Hawke) but just wakes him up while she’s packing. They get their two kids (Rose and Archie) and drive to the rental house on Long Island. After they settle in, they head to the beach where they experience their first weird event. An oil tanker runs aground right in front of their beach umbrella. It’s quite an impressive special effect. The Sandford family just think it’s an odd, but startling accident.
That night, G. H. Scott (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myhal’la) knocked on their door claiming to be the owners of the house. They ask if they can stay there that night too because the power has gone off in New York City. The house still has power, but it’s lost cable and the internet, so things are starting to feel weird.
The rest of the movie is about how these six people get along not knowing what’s happening. As the weekend progresses increasingly weird and strange things happen, but because they have no real news, the two families can only speculate. Clay tries to drive into a local town to find out what’s going on but gets lost without a GPS. Amanda, a businesswoman freely admits she hates people, has all kinds of paranoid theories. G. H. knows some extraordinarily rich people connected to the military and offers other theories. Poor Rose only wants to see the last episode of Friends after binge-watching ten years of the series and having just one episode to go. The Scotts are African Americans, and Ruth doesn’t trust the white Sandfords, especially the mother, Amanda.
There are some spectacular special effects scenes with deer and Tesla cars that made me think of other theories about what’s happening. The gathering of deer reminds me of Hitchcock’s The Birds.
One of the obvious points the movie makes is how terribly dependent we are on our smart phones. But if you pay closer attention, it’s interesting to know how different Leave the World Behind is from earlier stories like it. There is little survivalism in this film. Of course, this is just the first weekend of the apocalypse. I’d love to see a sequel about what the six experiences over the next coming months. Amanda assumes that everything will get back to normal soon, but we know that’s insane. Rose Sandford has the most positive approach. She decides she isn’t going to wait for things to get normal again, but goes off on her own to find a copy of Friends to watch.
There are a lot of preppers and survivalists in our society, but the six presented here don’t think that way. I assume the storytellers are saying most of us are going to be damn helpless. None of the six even say, “At least we have plenty of deer to eat.”
I really got into Leave the World Behind, but Susan, my wife, thought it was a big waste of two hours on Christmas Eve. I thought it justified the price of Netflix this month. The film is based on a book by Rumaan Alam. I haven’t read it, but now I’m tempted.
James Wallace Harris, 12/25/23
Classics of Science Fiction 
Post apocalyptic novels (like novels set in Heaven or Hell) are often about the author’s idea of how society is or should be constructed. Back in the 60s and 70s, I went through a period of reading them, and what finally put me off was that so many included at least one savvy male character reflecting “The only good thing about the nuclear war/epidemic/asteroid hitting the earth/attack of the giant insects, was it destroyed all that nonsense about women’s liberation.”
Or, there was the inevitable scene when the hero gives a pep talk to the discouraged little band of survivors huddled in a refuge from the fallout/virus/anarchy/spiders-the-size-of-Volkswagons, which included the reassuring news that “we have food, shelter, water, women….” The thought of being kept stored as resource along with the bottled water and canned food became less and less piquant as I got older.
That said, I liked LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND, perhaps because I suspect the author’s idea of what’s important aligns with my own. I think much of it is about the extent to which the mother and the teenage girl have embraced a level of intolerant hostility that can’t and shouldn’t be sustained in the face of physical danger. What made both characters unlikeable was their embrace of contempt — something that had to be shed if they were going to survive.
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I saw this quite recently, and it’s certainly way more satisfying that M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin, which has quite a similar setup, but disintegrates into irrational mush. Both movies have the same feature that consistently irritates me: characters withholding important information from one another. But Leave the World Behind maintains the suspense rather better, and the apocalyptic developments are disturbingly credible. I’d be interested to know why Susan thought it was a waste of time.
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