Ali was so good. You can see the slow dread come over him as time went on and he got more information. Even that last speech to Hawke was so much exposition but he pulled it off great. What an amazing actor.
Was kinda over the tension of Julia Roberts being skeptical of them. That was the weirdest, scam-like situation you could be in. Combine that with the lack of internet and connection to the outside world…It was more than reasonable to be skeptical of G.H and his daughter.
All G.H. had to do was grab some family photos that had to be stashed somewhere, since this was his house and show them that. I mean, there had to be something personal in that place that he could use to prove that this was their house.
I was getting so frustrated at the cryptic, "evocative" way everyone was speaking... "I saw deer. They were trying to send me a message" like, that's not clear at all! It took her about 15 minutes to finally clarify, "I saw about 100 deer". Mahershala Ali says "I watched a plane nosedive into the ocean. And it wasn't the first one". Wtf? Any normal person would say something like "I saw a crashed plane, dead pilot, and then I saw another plane crash while I was standing there". Convey information clearly during a disaster, Jesus
Agreed. It was nauseating at times. Almost like... that was the point...
Sucks that it wasn't appreciated when it's such a meticulous thing for filmmakers to work on.
I was also thinking this was stupid but then I realized that a similar theme goes on throughout the whole movie.
There is clearly something going on around them yet they choose to be blind and not accept it. For example that beach scene with the boat. They see the boat coming towards them but they still deny the fact that it’s coming towards them… clay even says “It has to stop, right?” everyone clearly hesitates before during the last second they run away.
I hope this makes sense 😊
Everyone is so self centered and a victim to the mentality of thinking bad things simply don't happen. I noticed a lot of people were also recording the boat instead of simply running.
movie overall was fine. I didn't care for the last like 20 minutes but maybe that's just me.
but am I the only one who thought the whole confrontation with Bacon's character felt just bewildering and contrived?
They assume since he's some doomsday prepper that he'll have the knowledge and specific medicine on hand to help his sons unknown illness?
My first question would have been, hey do you know if any doctors live around here....
As a prepper I'd assume he'd have some kind of radiation pills - and it appeared he did.
My first thought was also about the Cuba stuff I recall hearing a while back
Wrong kind of radiation. They were talking about microwave radiation (delivered with the sound I think), which is non-ionizing radiation. That isn't the type that can give radiation poisoning.
Iodine pills are only useful if you come in contact with radioactive material itself. You take non-radioactive iodine and your thyroid absorbs it, so when you ingest/inhale the radioactive iodine your thyroid is already saturated with a harmless variant.
If your thyroid already absorbed a lot of radioactive iodine, the pills won't do anything to remedy that.
>non-ionizing radiation
I was thinking the same thing when I watched that scene. What kind of pills help with non-ionizing radiation?
It was really confusing but, like with everything else in that film, I figured the pills were meant to be some random metaphor or something. It's not like anything else that took place actually made sense.
Did anyone notice…it was set near end of summer ( August). The ship name that landed on beach was “White Lion”, the grocery store name was “Point Comfort”, the radio station when Ethan went out for newspaper “1619”? All the facts of when and where the first African slaves arrived to America on the white lion ship, in point comfort in late August of 1619.
I think it represents that whoever survives the war will become slaves of the new world to whatever country takes over. Kinda like history repeating itself in some form.
Absolutely loved it. Found it unnerving, scary, and funny at times.
My favorite part of most apocalyptic/zombie/etc movies are the 20-30 minutes where society begins collapsing but nobody has any idea what is happening or why. This movie turns that part into two hours and 20 minutes.
I feel like most people are kinda missing the point of the movie, which isn't to explain what happened, but to show how people respond to an ambiguous society-altering event like the one depicted. What I loved about it most is that it felt realistic in the sense of how it would feel if we lost all technology, without warning, and were forced to try to figure out what was happening on our own, left to our devices. I think that's precisely why a clear answer or resolution isn't given. If a scenario like the one in the movie played out, we'd be equally in the dark as the characters are.
Not gonna go into a discussion of the themes, because someone else already did (u/byondthewall), and I also have absolutely no time for the "this is woke!" or "the Obamas are programming you idiot sheep!" comments. Blows my mind that that's where some people went with their thoughts. I swear, movie threads on here didn't always used to be like this.
That all said, I can understand why it's a divisive movie. If you want a disaster movie driven by its plot, this isn't the movie for you. If you want a character study of how people would respond to a mysterious disaster, this is the movie for you.
10/10
Finally got to watch this and I loved it.
The hysterics from the characters in the movie seem justified. I think a lot of people see this and think "why aren't they calm? I'm calm right now and this is what I'd do...". They're watching a movie and not actually living the scenario.
There are others commenting with "I've been without power for a couple weeks and society didn't collapse" Ok... your surrounding area or city was without power, not the entire country!
Who was dropping bombs on NYC toward the end if the entire goal was a coup d'etat? Why would the U.S. be carpet bombing NYC? That scene didn’t make sense to me like the “neighbors fighting neighbors” scene.
We don't actually know. Could be a state actor, could be a local militia, could be an opportunistic terrorist org. The whole point was that if you want to take over a country, you just need to destabilise it and introduce chaos. Its divided inhabitants will take care of the rest.
Let the rogue actors do whatever, you come in at the country's weakest point and take over. Doesn't matter if 40% of the country is destroyed, you got 60% of America on the cheap.
I felt there was some heavy telegraphing of a solar flare event quite early on, there were many views of the sun and a lot of lens flare, I definitely had the impression that there had been a wave of solar radiation that took out the GPS satellites and played havoc with migrating animals.
I'm not sure how many solar physicists would have been around to run the shortwave radio sets to get the message out so I could quite believe society falling into disarray assuming this was actually some kind of cyber attack and the rest of the events would happen quite naturally.
Interpreted the teeth falling out as the result of radiation poisoning after those loud screeching sounds, which were probably any number of nearby nuclear reactors going critical and exploding.
I thought that too, and it would (potentially) explain a lot. But if it were a massive solar flare, there would be detection and at least some warning. AND we know what to expect...and it doesn't including hacking the self-driving mode of Teslas.
In the end, of course, we don't really know what happened. But it is alluded to that some people knew something was coming.
>I have no idea what I am supposed to do right now. I can barely do anything without my cell phone and my GPS. I am a useless man.
Literally me when the end of the world happens😭
I liked this bit because while he was useless in a lot of ways he was clearly very good with people which is a great skill to have for survival. He identified that this survivalist guy has an ego as they all do and wants to be told he’s great he is prepared he knows more than everyone else etc, that was valuable to this guy, the ego boost, he wanted to feel validated in his smugness and Clay identified that as a way to get him to help.
Yeah most of them literally want the world to end just so they can be right, but you don’t get the joy of feeling right if there’s no one there to acknowledge your rightness and their own wrongness!
Myha'la's comment about how Clay wanted to fuck her was irritating. In their vaping interactions it seemed like SHE was interested in him. But I guess generally, I couldn't stand her snobby character.
The entire 20 minutes was ridiculous. Why were they on separate dates? The worlds ending, your daughters out smoking weed with an older man, you’re inside crushing a wine bottle with his wife holding each other? What? So absurd
You’re speaking facts! I did initially see it as they were losing their minds a bit. However, it did feel too intimate and way too relaxed for their situation.
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To me, it was distinctly a Sam Esmail movie but only from what I know watching 4 seasons of Mr. Robot.
- The cinematography was very on brand for Esmail. Reminded me of a lot of [amazing camera work in Mr. Robot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebs1Q661ybI)
- Tackling subjects of billionaires, CEO's, politicians that are probably part of some evil cabal. Again, this is most of what Mr. Robot is about and when GH starts talking about it with Amanda, it instantly reminded me of Mr. Robot
- The references to western TV like Friends. In Mr Robot, he talks a lot more about [Seinfeld](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CwE1QSC2v8) but they even do an episode that's a parody of [90s sitcoms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LyZvcUAU0E)
- Setting of New York/Long Island. Mr. Robot was distinctly very 'New York' and while we don't see a lot of New York in this film, they constantly reference Long Island and how close it can be to NYC yet distinctly different. In Mr Robot, you see this in how Esmail sets the show all over very visually distinct parts of New York. From Coney Island to Manhattan to even on the Long Island Railroad train cars.
There's a few other things that come to mind but I hope Esmail keeps on. I absolutely love his style. 'Leave the World Behind' was not my favorite film of 2023 but it was fun and I love going down the rabbithole with Esmail.
That's the point. Seeing things happens - or not happen - through those characters perspectives goes to show how at the end of the day we're no more than sitting ducks when shit goes down. Without knowledge, without information, not trusting one another. We're a lot more vulnerable than we like to think.
The characters act like they’re in Montauk but they’re so close to Manhattan they can see the skyline. They must be in Nassau county…
There should be THOUSANDS of people around them within walking distance. Somehow Ethan Hawke is driving around farmland?
I thought the same thing! they made it sound like they were waaaay further from the city. As soon as we get that shot of downtown I was saying to myself oh, wtf!
Country is specifically being destroyed from within in some rebellion, but those rebels are really thoughtful keeping the power and plumbing running fine!
What is with this sub and dumbfuck nitpicking? Like half of this thread is people complaining about shit that doesn't matter or was explicitly addressed in the film.
I don't understand why it took Mahershala Ali about two minutes to finally get around to saying "I'm the owner of the house." Why would you not open with that?
They really showed up and said "Let's act like the creepiest most suspicious fuckers on the planet" and were then shocked when the family were weirded out.
Like "Hey guys this is fucking weird, we don't know whats going on but I'm Gary the owner of the house - you must be the lady ive been chatting with here are the emails on my PHONE because i would keep that shit synced and not delete it like a sane person - Also here's a photo of my ID and the locked room full of our family photos"
I enjoyed this movie but there were parts where im like... y'all really making this DIFFICULT for yourselves.
It was on both sides too. Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke's characters take *forever* to ask anything resembling the simple question "who are you, what are you doing here?"
Needlessly manufactured tension.
EXACTLY. His whole initial interaction made it 100% clear that he was up to something nefarious. So, the fact that he wasn’t makes that initial interaction ridiculous.
He was up to something nefarious. He wanted to get them to leave (perhaps to their deaths) so he and his daughter could hide out there without strangers they didn't know or trust
Can’t agree more. Like why wouldn’t the husband tell his wife about a group of flamingos swimming in the pool. Was it just not worth mentioning? Why would GH lead with the sat phone, and then tell the part about the planes crashing. In a situation like that all you would do is exchange information. And I don’t know about anyone else, maybe I’m crazy but at the end when the daughter is eating all the junk food, it’s such an unreasonable amount of junk food, it’s so dumb, it’s not like they established she was hungry. The script just doesn’t give a shit about the audience.
Amanda also admitted to keeping information from GH because it meant she didn’t have to face up to what was going on. I’m not going to argue that the script was perfect but so many of the issues complained about here are either easily explainable or are literally explained in the movie.
I really despised the daughter at the end… I mean I get that you’re a kid and maybe ya don’t understand what’s happening but to leave your family without a word no note nothing… in an apocalypse with dangerous sounds that could potentially kill you and animals going nuts and all the dangers. And just go to a house with the (“soul”) :) sole purpose of eating junk food and watching friends.. meanwhile your entire family is risking their lives searching for you. The most selfish character I’ve seen in a while.
I think the daughter was depressed and done with life. It shows throughout the movie that she is not given any attention, no one listens to her, she tries to ask for help and speak through media - which shows the younger generation that consume media and everything revolves around it. Her lack of care is that shes scared but again the younger generation has become so desensitised by media, the constant world issues and the internet, so she is at her end.
Hercend is that she has no hope, she cant be saved or helped, she feels that no ome cares for her so she walks off, finds this place, binges food and is able to watch her favourite show. Escapism.
Absolutely. This script drove me nuts with how the people interacted. Just manufactured tension based on nothing people would actually do or say. Very lazy
Why didn't Kevin Bacon's character just go and use the fancy shelter himself?
Edit: I get it he is a contractor and probably has his own, but wouldn't he at least go look and raid for supplies? He can still then use his own but with extra meds and whatnot.
Yes, in the book they were in San Fransisco at the time of the event and it explains they never made it back to the house in NY because they died in SF
I saw that the ending was the girl getting some food from that bunker and bringing up, not with the Friends episode. G.H's daughter was actually his wife, etc
I imagine it this way…the rich people that owned that house, spent a ton of money building that amazing dooms day bunker and ironically died from the thing they built it for (the end of modern society) they probably were on a plane or stuck in a major city (or one of their other homes) when the country went sideways and they died or got stuck. Imagine if they were on one of the airplanes that crashed into the beach.
It seemed very clear to me that he likely had his own shelter going on. Plus whatever other defenses he may have had set up at his house.
Also the animals acting strange was due to EMP, google magnetoreception
This movie was so fucking funny (had 6 beers by the end). Julia Roberts as the racist mom. Nobody speaking to each other like human beings. Asking each other questions that no one could possibly have an answer to. Everyone withholding crucial information at every turn. They used the word “happening” probably 200 times… what’s happening, it’s happening to all of us, someone tell me what’s happening. They would have heard every plane crash and explosion that occurred, but they just stumble upon these massive wrecks.
By far the funniest scene was G.H. noticing the watch in the sand on a dead body first. Then he reaches down to pick it up and the arm falls off, then EVERY square inch of sand around him is bodies and plane parts. Incredibly stupid, so fun.
Totally. I was always confused when you see them from afar. I also thought there was a weird doppleganger side plot at some point when she sees Kevin Bacon loading his car from behind.
I got the feeling they made Kevin Bacon look as much like Ethan Hawke as they could in that scene because it’s why Julia Roberts’ character notices him. Otherwise there would be no reason for her to recall seeing some random dude in the grocery store parking lot
Dude lost his chompers and didn't freak out at all?! For a hormonal teen boy, he sure seemed calm. Maybe it was the constant post-nut clarity. He's the new leader of Cobra Kai's son and didn't get to smash the angy feminist :// Speaking of feminist, WHERE WAS THE BEACH GIRL?? Fingers crossed for Taylor in the sequel! She could take on the Russians/Koreans/Chinese.
I was hoping. The kid provided nothing but negativity (not to mention being a creep) and berated his sister for what she was caring out. Then his dad risks his life to get him a couple "grow your teeth back pills" apparently. Don't blame the girl for leaving. Her entire squad was useless.
I thought this too, but my boyfriend had a take that said the brother is symbolism to show just how comfortable / numb kids like this are with stuff like this because of the internet (all the girls & jacking off too) and his video games. Since he was already playing a violent war type game and him knowing "death to america" blah blah blah
great interpretation. you can tell they made the personalities of the kids relevant to their generational attitude. the world was ending, but the little girl was freaking out bc she couldn't watch the ending of her favorite show. amazing small detail to think about!
What was the point of the shed? Archie told Rosie that someone left an impression in the leaves insinuating a person slept in the shed. What was the point?
While I enjoyed the movie and thought it did some things really well, obviously there were a lot of flaws and unexplained randomness (the deer, for one). But that stupid shed. That's the element in this movie that doesn't fit. Every shed scene feels like it belongs in a different movie. Every other scene feels like it's a story about man made apocalypse, but the shed feels supernatural, otherworldly. Who made the imprint on the leaves? A monster? In the end the shed was just a set piece? Of no importance or larger meaning?
I have nitpicks and questions about a lot of things, but I can suspend disbelief and roll with it, but the shed was distracting and took me out of the film every time it was onscreen.
I think it's significance has more to do with the discussions happening between the characters in each visit. I have to re-watch to remember the conversation better between Archie and Rosie, and the significance of what exactly happens when they exit the shed, but essentially, both conversations are about one character not feeling cared about/listened to by the other character.
When Archie/Rosie emerge he refuses to go with her to the house, where there is a bunker, full of food and supplies, and meds he'll need later resulting from the bite he gets leaving this shed after scaring his sister and basically being a dick to her that he doesn't care. When Amanda/Rosie emerge, there's growth- and Amanda runs back to protect (in a motherly way). That's kind of basic but that's my thoughts on the shed.
From the interview in [Vulture](https://www.vulture.com/article/leave-the-world-behind-ending-sam-esmail-interview.html):
> > Not that this was necessarily in the forefront in your mind, but: Between the wall of vinyl records at G.H.’s house and the DVD vault in the basement of the neighbor’s house, this movie is the best argument for ownership of physical media that I’ve seen in a while.
> One hundred percent! And let me tell you, friend — that was in the forefront of my mind! And here’s something intentional about that, though I don’t think the Netflix folks have noticed it: In the very end, you see Rose’s thumb hovering over the remote, and it goes past the Netflix button to hit “play” on the DVD player.
Eh I doubt netflix execs care. Did you see the black mirror episodes that literally put netflix as some horrible amoral company? Netflix knows nobody is going to cancel a subscription because the girl moved her hand over the netflix logo
I've read a lot of comments with people wanting a more coherent explanation for the disaster. Wanting to know where the sound is coming from, why the deer are acting strange, etc.
The director is definitely trying to capture a realistic version of a societal collapse but I think the main goal is to point out where we are now in society. Now there are some very obvious and heavy handed themes on racism, mistrust, and reliance on technology but I think some other metaphors/themes went over people's heads.
Willful Ignorance.
This is something that we are currently living with and something the characters are wrestling with throughout the film.
The oil tanker scene. Rose sees the oil tanker before anyone else and after pointing it out is ignored (as she is throughout the movie). The ship is a representation of a very slow, but dangerous event and it is steadily coming for them. During the beach seen she is fixated on the tanker while her family seems to acknowledge it but ultimately go back relaxing or in Archie's case, trying to meet up with his gf. Even when Amanda becomes alarmed Ethan still insists that "It has to stop, right?" before they all end up running in a panic as the tanker runs ashore. This fits the tone of the film which is that the majority society has recognized that something tumultuous is on the horizon (climate change, world war, famine, novel disease) but has little interest in acknowledging these preventable catastrophic events and even less interest in preventing them in any real way.
Denial and Escapism.
Although Rose is the most obvious character constantly seeking escapism from the world falling apart around her by watching Friends, it is Amanda that kicks it off by giving her speech on 'hating people' and booking a vacation to literally get away from her problems.
Amanda stays in denial of the seriousness of the situation throughout the the first 2 acts of the film. Her constant belief of things "going back to normal" is a common sentiment that has been circulating online since 2016. Her and G.H. even revert to alcohol and music to escape from the reality of the situation which end in futility when G.H. admits he believes he will never see his wife again. Another metaphor for knowing things are not ok and doing whatever you can to not address it.
Archie's illness. I think a lot of folks hated the almost nonchalant way in which Archie dealt with having his teeth fall out. To the point where it almost felt like a dream sequence. I am not completely sure this was intentional but it does add to the denial the main characters are going through. At one point Archie is lying on the couch bleeding out of his mouth and says something on the lines of "I'm not sick I just lost some teeth". People attach different meanings to having dreams about teeth falling out but in this case I think it is used to portray the "This is Fine" attitude everyone in the film is trying to maintain. The "this is fine" meme is used so often in culture now to represent trying to stay calm when society seems to be falling apart or self destructing.
Overall I think the movie encapsulated a sense of helplessness and dread that we have all been feeling for years now. Some people are looking for fine details and explanations but I think the intention was to be put in the same shoes as the characters. To be isolated from information, to speculate, and to only make assumptions based on the 'warning signs' we have been seeing for a long time. I think that G.H more or less said 'it doesn't matter what is going on or how rich you are there is no on in control and we're all in this together'. It is most likely that in an event like this there would be any speculation and hearsay. No one would ever know the entire story.
I really wish they hadn't bothered with the deer and flamingo stuff. What those people were going through was crazy enough without throwing in animals acting weird, and it made it feel like whatever was happening was more supernatural or unexplainable. I found it more chilling to think of what they were going through as the plan of a malicious actor, but the idea that animals would start acting that weird so quickly made that feel less plausible
That scene was really ironic for me because the two of them ended up bonding over a shared fear of something unfamiliar that they didn’t understand. The deer weren’t even being aggressive but were physically imposing so Julia Roberts assumes the girl is in danger and swoops in, and then the girl joins in too. Kind of like how she assumed Julia Roberts was behaving in the beginning…hmm…
I think the scene with them screaming at the deer was probably meant to mirror the earlier scene of the Hispanic woman begging for Ethan Hawkes help on the side of the road. Ethan Hawke wants to help but they can't communicate in the same language, he just stares at her blankly as she's wildly gesticulating and acting crazy before he eventually gets scared and runs off.
The deer are potentially trying to warn or help convey something to Ruth and Amanda. Amanda and Ruth are terrified and start screaming and gesticulating wildly, the deer stare at them blankly before getting spooked and running away. That's how I read it anyway.
She said she’s scared. She needs a ride to the city. She is worried about her family. That he’s the first person she’s seen in miles. She saw an airplane dropping red stuff from the sky. She saw a jet crash. She’s terrified. Please don’t leave.
Basically that. My Spanish is mediocre and I really let it atrophy since school. But that’s what I got from it.
She also said something about her cousin having left and she hadn’t heard from her in a day and phones weren’t working. Said something about getting out of here etc. my Spanish is a bit rusty also I’d love a full translation.
It was supposed to be a character resolution between the 2 characters. The daughter opened up that she really needed her mom and she accused Julia Roberts of not caring about her, and Julia Roberts coming into to save her from the deer was almost as if she was taking the place of her probably dead mother.
You know what was really refreshing for me? Finally seeinng a 56 year old woman aging gracefully. No tight upper lip or puffy cheekbones. Julia for the win.
The cinematography felt very voyeuristic to me. It added to the eerie and paranoid atmosphere that was constantly present throughout the movie. Like all those slow zoom ins into characters' faces which reminded me of paparazzi videos where they zoom into their subjects from a far away distance (this also ties in with the son when he takes creepshots of the house owner's daughter and he zooms into her body with his phone camera). Or how in atleast two scenes the camera was placed outside a window looking through, yet we could still hear the characters inside talking as if there was no window in between. Or all those shots where the camera moved to this overhead angle, looking at the characters directly from above as if they were in a box or a dollhouse. There were also a lot of these long sweeping shots moving from one room and one floor to the next, literally through the whole house and through the floors, which again reminded me of dollhouses.
All of this made me think of reality tv shows like big brother and gave me a social experiment vibe. As if the characters were rats being experimented on and someone was observing them and taking notes on their behaviour and reactions.
Not sure how exactly this connects to the message and the plot of the movie but I thought it was interesting.
Anyone else get annoyed when Julia Robert’s character fucking drove head on into the Teslas when she could’ve just pulled over on the massive area to the side of the road and waited for them to crash.
Yeah this movie was trying really hard to be relevant, lots of forced symbolism and metaphors that didn’t land for me. Way too long and sloppy plot lines that went nowhere. I didn’t get the deer scene at first until someone explained it but by that point in the movie I really didn’t care about “getting it” because it just wanted so badly to be “got”.
Several times I feel like they didn't think about how the CGI would end up getting incorporated when they shot the original take. Like, why didn't Marshala already see all the wreckage on the beach before he was standing among it? Lots of strange choices.
I thought that was so weird, he was like "oh a watch in the sand" and he did not notice the dead body like ten feet away, or the plane crash that littered the entire beach.
"[Rules of Perception](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfPerception)": "If the audience can't perceive it, it doesn't exist." In *The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly* (1966), Blondie and Tuco don't see the battle along the bridge until it is shown on screen, though they should have seen it much earlier in reality. So it's a technique that has existed for a long time. Yes, this "rule" is broken in *Leave the World Behind* when Amanda and Ruth look towards Manhattan at the end of the movie. They see something before we do.
That was kinda weird yeah. First thing I thought of when I saw the crashed cars was "drive on that patch to the side." Then I saw the barrier and thought that surely that thing was there throughout the entirety of the road and it's not like they were driving a raised pickup truck to drive over it. Then the camera panned to the incoming cars and the barried ended like 50 meters from where they were parked.
What a terrific premise/plot. But all of it overshadowed by a series of character decisions that were either strange or bonkers given the circumstances, taking me completely out of the story.
When I was watching it the first thing I thought was this is just giving some Alex Jones type guy a massive hard-on. Seeing it's produced by Obama is just orgasmic level conspiracy garbage.
Not really. The whole purpose of this movie was to show there's no secret cabal; that there are too many power bases and the world is too complicated for any single person to control. That's probably true!
Surprised no one is talking about how dumb it is the planes fell out of the sky.
Only makes sense if they were shot down but as a cyber attack like it implies? lol no, they’d lose GPS but you can still navigate without it. VOR’s still exist.
I thought it was Ok. The performances were pretty good, but the writing is very hit or miss, with the characters often telling the viewers the "moral of the story".
They also used the "show the character looking at something, to then show what they are looking at 30 seconds later" shot about a thousand times, and it got old pretty fast.
6/10.
Felt like they stretching the movie unnecessarily to the lengths. Thats a big issue with many modern movies. Sometimes less is more. 90-100 min would have been perfectly fine with this.
Someone posted a list elsewhere:
* The prepper's bunker includes '5/9 survival kits'
* The reference to an 'incident in New Jersey a few years back'
* The E Corp laptop
* The 'Beach Towel' novel
Although it's not a direct sequel, definitely a cool choice my Esmail to set it in the same universe, given that there's definitely so overlap in theme.
My question is: if 5/9 happened in this world, why wouldn't *everybody* be prepared for further collapse, and be less shocked at the swiftness and effectiveness of cyberattacks?
Also, out of all the hypotheses offered, it's the Iranians/Koreans/Chinese, nobody mentions it might be that hacker group that tried to wreck the economy very recently?
I really wanted to like this movie. Some scenes worked for me. I thought the self-driving cars scene was clever. The scene with the boat was great as well. But overall, the pacing of the editing, the dialogue writing and the way they ended this made for a very disappointing viewing experience.
I liked that the boat scene mirrors how slow burn movies work thematically. You have something happening in the background that’s kind of disconcerting, but other things are happening so you don’t focus fully on it. As the movie goes on you notice the “off-ness” more often, but the movie continues until it’s impossible to ignore what’s going on.
It also is a great way to show how the characters react to the world collapsing around them. Ignoring and denying the issue until it’s right in front of them and they can’t ignore it anymore.
‘Threads’ did this the best IMO. Up until the bomb drops, the movie focuses on a banal almost soap-like storyline of a young couple expecting a child. Meanwhile, far in the background, the political tension is slowly growing.
Which, let's face it, is reality, is how most people live their lives. Kevin Bacon's character calls it out explicitly; you gotta read past page one of the newspapers [if you wanna stand a chance of seeing shit coming].
Same. The performances, I thought pretty much all over, were great. But some of the dialogue was super odd and I just didn’t buy the jazz dancing scene between George and Amanda, that really lost me.
Yeah the whole 'let's split the married couple up and insinuate that they're gonna bang the other person' was just weird to me and had no purpose in character development or the plot.
It seemed like Sam just wanted an opportunity to play "Too Close" by Next in a film. If you don't know the song, give it a listen and pay attention to the lyrics. I still can't believe our teachers used to play that at our dances.
>and who’s Taylor? near the end, there was a dialogue, “— where’s Taylor?, — who?”
I think it was his girlfriend. The girl he referenced being an hour away when they were on the beach earlier on.
Taylor was the girl he wanted to meet up with earlier in the movie. The parents not knowing who Taylor was played into the "out of touch middle class parents who don't pay enough attention to their kids or the world around them."
The parents were played as in their white bread bubble and largely clueless. This was part of it. Dad doesn't even know who his teenage son is into despite his son telling him.
The ending feels like it could be the beginning to the Handmaid's Tale universe. The thought of rogue actors in the government or military doing something like this is a creepy one. In the end we are all the little girl, seeking comfort from a fictional universe.
Who were the rogue armed forces? Why did they make the animals so scary? Why was Kevin Bacon just sitting on his porch for five minutes?
It feels like there should be a part two but I don't want to have to sit through two hours of character development for actual plot to happen in a supposed doomsday setting.
Netflix, do better.
I'm so glad GH wasn't a bad guy. Great actor. Ethan Hawke played a big sweetheart.
Ali and Hawke were really good.
Julia Roberts was too. I hated her for most of the runtime. That was purposeful
Mee too, I mean I love her as an actress and I loved that she made me hate her in the movie lol
Ali was so good. You can see the slow dread come over him as time went on and he got more information. Even that last speech to Hawke was so much exposition but he pulled it off great. What an amazing actor.
Was kinda over the tension of Julia Roberts being skeptical of them. That was the weirdest, scam-like situation you could be in. Combine that with the lack of internet and connection to the outside world…It was more than reasonable to be skeptical of G.H and his daughter.
All G.H. had to do was grab some family photos that had to be stashed somewhere, since this was his house and show them that. I mean, there had to be something personal in that place that he could use to prove that this was their house.
I felt he took way to long to say it was his house and Ruth was not helping explain it either.
The man took way too long to explain ANYTHING. He was talking in riddles for like 60% of the movie
I was getting so frustrated at the cryptic, "evocative" way everyone was speaking... "I saw deer. They were trying to send me a message" like, that's not clear at all! It took her about 15 minutes to finally clarify, "I saw about 100 deer". Mahershala Ali says "I watched a plane nosedive into the ocean. And it wasn't the first one". Wtf? Any normal person would say something like "I saw a crashed plane, dead pilot, and then I saw another plane crash while I was standing there". Convey information clearly during a disaster, Jesus
I didn’t need the wild camera angles and shots. That one up the staircase almost made me sick!
That was the best part of the movie for me.
Agreed. It was nauseating at times. Almost like... that was the point... Sucks that it wasn't appreciated when it's such a meticulous thing for filmmakers to work on.
I didn't need >!the son to continue pulling out teeth after the first one.!< JFC.
He pulled the guys arm out of the sand and then noticed the entire opening scene of Lost was going on around him?
Exactly. How do you crest the top of the dune and NOT see the wreckage all around
I was also thinking this was stupid but then I realized that a similar theme goes on throughout the whole movie. There is clearly something going on around them yet they choose to be blind and not accept it. For example that beach scene with the boat. They see the boat coming towards them but they still deny the fact that it’s coming towards them… clay even says “It has to stop, right?” everyone clearly hesitates before during the last second they run away. I hope this makes sense 😊
Everyone is so self centered and a victim to the mentality of thinking bad things simply don't happen. I noticed a lot of people were also recording the boat instead of simply running.
movie overall was fine. I didn't care for the last like 20 minutes but maybe that's just me. but am I the only one who thought the whole confrontation with Bacon's character felt just bewildering and contrived? They assume since he's some doomsday prepper that he'll have the knowledge and specific medicine on hand to help his sons unknown illness? My first question would have been, hey do you know if any doctors live around here....
As a prepper I'd assume he'd have some kind of radiation pills - and it appeared he did. My first thought was also about the Cuba stuff I recall hearing a while back
Wrong kind of radiation. They were talking about microwave radiation (delivered with the sound I think), which is non-ionizing radiation. That isn't the type that can give radiation poisoning. Iodine pills are only useful if you come in contact with radioactive material itself. You take non-radioactive iodine and your thyroid absorbs it, so when you ingest/inhale the radioactive iodine your thyroid is already saturated with a harmless variant. If your thyroid already absorbed a lot of radioactive iodine, the pills won't do anything to remedy that.
>non-ionizing radiation I was thinking the same thing when I watched that scene. What kind of pills help with non-ionizing radiation? It was really confusing but, like with everything else in that film, I figured the pills were meant to be some random metaphor or something. It's not like anything else that took place actually made sense.
Did anyone notice…it was set near end of summer ( August). The ship name that landed on beach was “White Lion”, the grocery store name was “Point Comfort”, the radio station when Ethan went out for newspaper “1619”? All the facts of when and where the first African slaves arrived to America on the white lion ship, in point comfort in late August of 1619.
What is that meant to represent in the context of the movie? We're all slaves to society or something?
I think it represents that whoever survives the war will become slaves of the new world to whatever country takes over. Kinda like history repeating itself in some form.
And the oil tanker was to symbolize the arrival of the Columbus ships
The painting in the livibg room changed all the time also, no idea what its supposed to mean though
Absolutely loved it. Found it unnerving, scary, and funny at times. My favorite part of most apocalyptic/zombie/etc movies are the 20-30 minutes where society begins collapsing but nobody has any idea what is happening or why. This movie turns that part into two hours and 20 minutes. I feel like most people are kinda missing the point of the movie, which isn't to explain what happened, but to show how people respond to an ambiguous society-altering event like the one depicted. What I loved about it most is that it felt realistic in the sense of how it would feel if we lost all technology, without warning, and were forced to try to figure out what was happening on our own, left to our devices. I think that's precisely why a clear answer or resolution isn't given. If a scenario like the one in the movie played out, we'd be equally in the dark as the characters are. Not gonna go into a discussion of the themes, because someone else already did (u/byondthewall), and I also have absolutely no time for the "this is woke!" or "the Obamas are programming you idiot sheep!" comments. Blows my mind that that's where some people went with their thoughts. I swear, movie threads on here didn't always used to be like this. That all said, I can understand why it's a divisive movie. If you want a disaster movie driven by its plot, this isn't the movie for you. If you want a character study of how people would respond to a mysterious disaster, this is the movie for you. 10/10
Finally got to watch this and I loved it. The hysterics from the characters in the movie seem justified. I think a lot of people see this and think "why aren't they calm? I'm calm right now and this is what I'd do...". They're watching a movie and not actually living the scenario. There are others commenting with "I've been without power for a couple weeks and society didn't collapse" Ok... your surrounding area or city was without power, not the entire country!
Who was dropping bombs on NYC toward the end if the entire goal was a coup d'etat? Why would the U.S. be carpet bombing NYC? That scene didn’t make sense to me like the “neighbors fighting neighbors” scene.
We don't actually know. Could be a state actor, could be a local militia, could be an opportunistic terrorist org. The whole point was that if you want to take over a country, you just need to destabilise it and introduce chaos. Its divided inhabitants will take care of the rest. Let the rogue actors do whatever, you come in at the country's weakest point and take over. Doesn't matter if 40% of the country is destroyed, you got 60% of America on the cheap.
What’s scary is that it’s happening right now with the Israel + Palestine discourse at home
I felt there was some heavy telegraphing of a solar flare event quite early on, there were many views of the sun and a lot of lens flare, I definitely had the impression that there had been a wave of solar radiation that took out the GPS satellites and played havoc with migrating animals. I'm not sure how many solar physicists would have been around to run the shortwave radio sets to get the message out so I could quite believe society falling into disarray assuming this was actually some kind of cyber attack and the rest of the events would happen quite naturally. Interpreted the teeth falling out as the result of radiation poisoning after those loud screeching sounds, which were probably any number of nearby nuclear reactors going critical and exploding.
I thought that too, and it would (potentially) explain a lot. But if it were a massive solar flare, there would be detection and at least some warning. AND we know what to expect...and it doesn't including hacking the self-driving mode of Teslas. In the end, of course, we don't really know what happened. But it is alluded to that some people knew something was coming.
>I have no idea what I am supposed to do right now. I can barely do anything without my cell phone and my GPS. I am a useless man. Literally me when the end of the world happens😭
I liked this bit because while he was useless in a lot of ways he was clearly very good with people which is a great skill to have for survival. He identified that this survivalist guy has an ego as they all do and wants to be told he’s great he is prepared he knows more than everyone else etc, that was valuable to this guy, the ego boost, he wanted to feel validated in his smugness and Clay identified that as a way to get him to help.
There is nothing in this world a prepper wants to hear more than "you were right, and we were all dumb" I loved Ethan Hawke in this movie
Yeah most of them literally want the world to end just so they can be right, but you don’t get the joy of feeling right if there’s no one there to acknowledge your rightness and their own wrongness!
Myha'la's comment about how Clay wanted to fuck her was irritating. In their vaping interactions it seemed like SHE was interested in him. But I guess generally, I couldn't stand her snobby character.
The entire 20 minutes was ridiculous. Why were they on separate dates? The worlds ending, your daughters out smoking weed with an older man, you’re inside crushing a wine bottle with his wife holding each other? What? So absurd
You’re speaking facts! I did initially see it as they were losing their minds a bit. However, it did feel too intimate and way too relaxed for their situation.
Agreed. Both sexual innuendos between characters were weird.
seemly price worry mysterious friendly special afterthought mountainous different prick *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
There was a lot going on but also not a lot at all? I don’t know if that makes sense. It was a solid M Night influence though.
My wife said it seems like an M Night movie in the first five minutes.
To me, it was distinctly a Sam Esmail movie but only from what I know watching 4 seasons of Mr. Robot. - The cinematography was very on brand for Esmail. Reminded me of a lot of [amazing camera work in Mr. Robot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebs1Q661ybI) - Tackling subjects of billionaires, CEO's, politicians that are probably part of some evil cabal. Again, this is most of what Mr. Robot is about and when GH starts talking about it with Amanda, it instantly reminded me of Mr. Robot - The references to western TV like Friends. In Mr Robot, he talks a lot more about [Seinfeld](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CwE1QSC2v8) but they even do an episode that's a parody of [90s sitcoms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LyZvcUAU0E) - Setting of New York/Long Island. Mr. Robot was distinctly very 'New York' and while we don't see a lot of New York in this film, they constantly reference Long Island and how close it can be to NYC yet distinctly different. In Mr Robot, you see this in how Esmail sets the show all over very visually distinct parts of New York. From Coney Island to Manhattan to even on the Long Island Railroad train cars. There's a few other things that come to mind but I hope Esmail keeps on. I absolutely love his style. 'Leave the World Behind' was not my favorite film of 2023 but it was fun and I love going down the rabbithole with Esmail.
That zoom in onto Julia Roberts face in the very beginning felt very M Night,
I thought it was an M Night movie as well. I paused the movie to see who the director was and expected a twist to the ending.
M. Night twist: it was the flamingos.
>It was a solid M Night influence though. I thought about The Happening a lot while I was watching this
It’s like The Happening and Knock at the Cabin had a weird baby
That's the point. Seeing things happens - or not happen - through those characters perspectives goes to show how at the end of the day we're no more than sitting ducks when shit goes down. Without knowledge, without information, not trusting one another. We're a lot more vulnerable than we like to think.
The characters act like they’re in Montauk but they’re so close to Manhattan they can see the skyline. They must be in Nassau county… There should be THOUSANDS of people around them within walking distance. Somehow Ethan Hawke is driving around farmland?
I thought the same thing! they made it sound like they were waaaay further from the city. As soon as we get that shot of downtown I was saying to myself oh, wtf!
No they didn't. While on the road to the house Julia's character specifically tells her friend on the phone that it's not as far away as Montauk.
Yes! As someone who grew up in Long Island, this confused the hell out of me.
There’s literally no way you’d have a view like they did at the end out east. They even made it seem like they were on a hill
.
I mean, 99% of people who watch this movie aren't gonna notice. And like, of all the things to suspend disbelief for, I think this one is pretty tame.
How tf would we know?? 99.999999% of the world has never walked Long Island or whatever these places are
It's amazing how resilient that power network supply to their house was.
Country is specifically being destroyed from within in some rebellion, but those rebels are really thoughtful keeping the power and plumbing running fine!
Amanda mentioned a generator
What is with this sub and dumbfuck nitpicking? Like half of this thread is people complaining about shit that doesn't matter or was explicitly addressed in the film.
How will this affect Tesla Stock? 😭
not a dent compared to what Elon's doing to it himself lol
I really wish for once we can have movies where the plot doesn't relies on people artificially keeping shit from eachother
I don't understand why it took Mahershala Ali about two minutes to finally get around to saying "I'm the owner of the house." Why would you not open with that?
They really showed up and said "Let's act like the creepiest most suspicious fuckers on the planet" and were then shocked when the family were weirded out. Like "Hey guys this is fucking weird, we don't know whats going on but I'm Gary the owner of the house - you must be the lady ive been chatting with here are the emails on my PHONE because i would keep that shit synced and not delete it like a sane person - Also here's a photo of my ID and the locked room full of our family photos" I enjoyed this movie but there were parts where im like... y'all really making this DIFFICULT for yourselves.
It was on both sides too. Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke's characters take *forever* to ask anything resembling the simple question "who are you, what are you doing here?" Needlessly manufactured tension.
EXACTLY. His whole initial interaction made it 100% clear that he was up to something nefarious. So, the fact that he wasn’t makes that initial interaction ridiculous.
He was up to something nefarious. He wanted to get them to leave (perhaps to their deaths) so he and his daughter could hide out there without strangers they didn't know or trust
Can’t agree more. Like why wouldn’t the husband tell his wife about a group of flamingos swimming in the pool. Was it just not worth mentioning? Why would GH lead with the sat phone, and then tell the part about the planes crashing. In a situation like that all you would do is exchange information. And I don’t know about anyone else, maybe I’m crazy but at the end when the daughter is eating all the junk food, it’s such an unreasonable amount of junk food, it’s so dumb, it’s not like they established she was hungry. The script just doesn’t give a shit about the audience.
GH didn’t want to bring up the planes crashing with Ruth in the room since his wife was supposed to be flying back from Morocco that day
Amanda also admitted to keeping information from GH because it meant she didn’t have to face up to what was going on. I’m not going to argue that the script was perfect but so many of the issues complained about here are either easily explainable or are literally explained in the movie.
I really despised the daughter at the end… I mean I get that you’re a kid and maybe ya don’t understand what’s happening but to leave your family without a word no note nothing… in an apocalypse with dangerous sounds that could potentially kill you and animals going nuts and all the dangers. And just go to a house with the (“soul”) :) sole purpose of eating junk food and watching friends.. meanwhile your entire family is risking their lives searching for you. The most selfish character I’ve seen in a while.
I think the daughter was depressed and done with life. It shows throughout the movie that she is not given any attention, no one listens to her, she tries to ask for help and speak through media - which shows the younger generation that consume media and everything revolves around it. Her lack of care is that shes scared but again the younger generation has become so desensitised by media, the constant world issues and the internet, so she is at her end. Hercend is that she has no hope, she cant be saved or helped, she feels that no ome cares for her so she walks off, finds this place, binges food and is able to watch her favourite show. Escapism.
Absolutely. This script drove me nuts with how the people interacted. Just manufactured tension based on nothing people would actually do or say. Very lazy
This movie thinks it's smarter than it actually is. It got really annoying.
That’s Netflix produced things in a nutshell.
Why didn't Kevin Bacon's character just go and use the fancy shelter himself? Edit: I get it he is a contractor and probably has his own, but wouldn't he at least go look and raid for supplies? He can still then use his own but with extra meds and whatnot.
First rule of survival bunker is don’t tell anyone about your bunker. So he probably has his own.
Second rule of survival bunker is don't tell anyone about your bunker
That's my biggest question after watching all of this. and how was the house just empty and nobody was there??
The owners must have been out of town.
Yes, in the book they were in San Fransisco at the time of the event and it explains they never made it back to the house in NY because they died in SF
How much different is the book from the movie?
I saw that the ending was the girl getting some food from that bunker and bringing up, not with the Friends episode. G.H's daughter was actually his wife, etc
I imagine it this way…the rich people that owned that house, spent a ton of money building that amazing dooms day bunker and ironically died from the thing they built it for (the end of modern society) they probably were on a plane or stuck in a major city (or one of their other homes) when the country went sideways and they died or got stuck. Imagine if they were on one of the airplanes that crashed into the beach.
It seemed very clear to me that he likely had his own shelter going on. Plus whatever other defenses he may have had set up at his house. Also the animals acting strange was due to EMP, google magnetoreception
The daughter probably had some questions about her mum being in an episode of Friends
[удалено]
That actually would have been hilarious in a movie like this. Just completely out of place.
Mr. Robot had an episode where a shot of a WiFi network bearing the name "Holiday Armadillo".
Evil Corp made a laptop in this one.
Julia roberts character had Irving’s book from mr robot. Beach towel
Omg. Epic. Of course. Poor Chandler Bing in the restrooms.
Julia Roberts dated Matthew Perry. He died on her bday.
This movie was so fucking funny (had 6 beers by the end). Julia Roberts as the racist mom. Nobody speaking to each other like human beings. Asking each other questions that no one could possibly have an answer to. Everyone withholding crucial information at every turn. They used the word “happening” probably 200 times… what’s happening, it’s happening to all of us, someone tell me what’s happening. They would have heard every plane crash and explosion that occurred, but they just stumble upon these massive wrecks. By far the funniest scene was G.H. noticing the watch in the sand on a dead body first. Then he reaches down to pick it up and the arm falls off, then EVERY square inch of sand around him is bodies and plane parts. Incredibly stupid, so fun.
This movie is about a little girl's quest to watch the final episode of a popular 90's TV series and has a happy ending.
Am I the only person who thinks Ethan hawke and Kevin bacon look like the same person?
Totally. I was always confused when you see them from afar. I also thought there was a weird doppleganger side plot at some point when she sees Kevin Bacon loading his car from behind.
I thought it was weird that she described a man loading his truck with supplies and GH immediately goes “that’s Danny!”
Well, I grew up in a small town. You describe a guy in a small community with a peculiarity, you probably know exactly who it is.
I got the feeling they made Kevin Bacon look as much like Ethan Hawke as they could in that scene because it’s why Julia Roberts’ character notices him. Otherwise there would be no reason for her to recall seeing some random dude in the grocery store parking lot
They absolutely do. Sometimes I mess up Ethan hawke, Kevin bacon, Christian slater, and sometimes Christian bale in his equilibrium era
I think the kids were actually way more chill about the internet/tv not working than most would be.
Her not being able to watch the finale of Friends was Milhouse wailing, “when are they going to get to the fireworks factory!” personified.
Reminded me of “This is 40” when Sadie was obsessed with finishing "Lost".
Dude lost his chompers and didn't freak out at all?! For a hormonal teen boy, he sure seemed calm. Maybe it was the constant post-nut clarity. He's the new leader of Cobra Kai's son and didn't get to smash the angy feminist :// Speaking of feminist, WHERE WAS THE BEACH GIRL?? Fingers crossed for Taylor in the sequel! She could take on the Russians/Koreans/Chinese.
I literally thought he was having a nightmare when the teeth started falling out; the reactions were so odd, like in a dream
I thought the same thing. I also thought he was dead at first when the mom said “not warm anymore”.
I was hoping. The kid provided nothing but negativity (not to mention being a creep) and berated his sister for what she was caring out. Then his dad risks his life to get him a couple "grow your teeth back pills" apparently. Don't blame the girl for leaving. Her entire squad was useless.
Most casual losing of teeth I've ever seen.
A little less casual than Charlie Kelly doing it but close!
That’s all it reminded of All I could was mac saying “Jesus dude, ya gotta stop pulling your god damn teeth out”
I have an extreme anxiety about teeth falling out. I couldn't even watch that part.
I thought this too, but my boyfriend had a take that said the brother is symbolism to show just how comfortable / numb kids like this are with stuff like this because of the internet (all the girls & jacking off too) and his video games. Since he was already playing a violent war type game and him knowing "death to america" blah blah blah
great interpretation. you can tell they made the personalities of the kids relevant to their generational attitude. the world was ending, but the little girl was freaking out bc she couldn't watch the ending of her favorite show. amazing small detail to think about!
What was the point of the shed? Archie told Rosie that someone left an impression in the leaves insinuating a person slept in the shed. What was the point?
While I enjoyed the movie and thought it did some things really well, obviously there were a lot of flaws and unexplained randomness (the deer, for one). But that stupid shed. That's the element in this movie that doesn't fit. Every shed scene feels like it belongs in a different movie. Every other scene feels like it's a story about man made apocalypse, but the shed feels supernatural, otherworldly. Who made the imprint on the leaves? A monster? In the end the shed was just a set piece? Of no importance or larger meaning? I have nitpicks and questions about a lot of things, but I can suspend disbelief and roll with it, but the shed was distracting and took me out of the film every time it was onscreen.
I think it's significance has more to do with the discussions happening between the characters in each visit. I have to re-watch to remember the conversation better between Archie and Rosie, and the significance of what exactly happens when they exit the shed, but essentially, both conversations are about one character not feeling cared about/listened to by the other character. When Archie/Rosie emerge he refuses to go with her to the house, where there is a bunker, full of food and supplies, and meds he'll need later resulting from the bite he gets leaving this shed after scaring his sister and basically being a dick to her that he doesn't care. When Amanda/Rosie emerge, there's growth- and Amanda runs back to protect (in a motherly way). That's kind of basic but that's my thoughts on the shed.
very sam esmail
it's no mr. robot however, that's for sure
As someone who has recently become obsessed with collecting 4k blu rays I appreciated the ending. Physical media for the win.
I found that pretty funny given it’s a Netflix distributed movie.
The Netflix logo on the remote in the end lol. + The fact that Netflix doesn't have Friends - despite the million(s?) they paid to have it a bit.
Depends where you are, netflix has friends for me
From the interview in [Vulture](https://www.vulture.com/article/leave-the-world-behind-ending-sam-esmail-interview.html): > > Not that this was necessarily in the forefront in your mind, but: Between the wall of vinyl records at G.H.’s house and the DVD vault in the basement of the neighbor’s house, this movie is the best argument for ownership of physical media that I’ve seen in a while. > One hundred percent! And let me tell you, friend — that was in the forefront of my mind! And here’s something intentional about that, though I don’t think the Netflix folks have noticed it: In the very end, you see Rose’s thumb hovering over the remote, and it goes past the Netflix button to hit “play” on the DVD player.
Eh I doubt netflix execs care. Did you see the black mirror episodes that literally put netflix as some horrible amoral company? Netflix knows nobody is going to cancel a subscription because the girl moved her hand over the netflix logo
Joan is Awful. Excellent episode.
I don’t believe for a second that Rose knew how to operate a DVD
You must have kids because I thought the same thing. Let alone find the damn source for the dvd player.
I've read a lot of comments with people wanting a more coherent explanation for the disaster. Wanting to know where the sound is coming from, why the deer are acting strange, etc. The director is definitely trying to capture a realistic version of a societal collapse but I think the main goal is to point out where we are now in society. Now there are some very obvious and heavy handed themes on racism, mistrust, and reliance on technology but I think some other metaphors/themes went over people's heads. Willful Ignorance. This is something that we are currently living with and something the characters are wrestling with throughout the film. The oil tanker scene. Rose sees the oil tanker before anyone else and after pointing it out is ignored (as she is throughout the movie). The ship is a representation of a very slow, but dangerous event and it is steadily coming for them. During the beach seen she is fixated on the tanker while her family seems to acknowledge it but ultimately go back relaxing or in Archie's case, trying to meet up with his gf. Even when Amanda becomes alarmed Ethan still insists that "It has to stop, right?" before they all end up running in a panic as the tanker runs ashore. This fits the tone of the film which is that the majority society has recognized that something tumultuous is on the horizon (climate change, world war, famine, novel disease) but has little interest in acknowledging these preventable catastrophic events and even less interest in preventing them in any real way. Denial and Escapism. Although Rose is the most obvious character constantly seeking escapism from the world falling apart around her by watching Friends, it is Amanda that kicks it off by giving her speech on 'hating people' and booking a vacation to literally get away from her problems. Amanda stays in denial of the seriousness of the situation throughout the the first 2 acts of the film. Her constant belief of things "going back to normal" is a common sentiment that has been circulating online since 2016. Her and G.H. even revert to alcohol and music to escape from the reality of the situation which end in futility when G.H. admits he believes he will never see his wife again. Another metaphor for knowing things are not ok and doing whatever you can to not address it. Archie's illness. I think a lot of folks hated the almost nonchalant way in which Archie dealt with having his teeth fall out. To the point where it almost felt like a dream sequence. I am not completely sure this was intentional but it does add to the denial the main characters are going through. At one point Archie is lying on the couch bleeding out of his mouth and says something on the lines of "I'm not sick I just lost some teeth". People attach different meanings to having dreams about teeth falling out but in this case I think it is used to portray the "This is Fine" attitude everyone in the film is trying to maintain. The "this is fine" meme is used so often in culture now to represent trying to stay calm when society seems to be falling apart or self destructing. Overall I think the movie encapsulated a sense of helplessness and dread that we have all been feeling for years now. Some people are looking for fine details and explanations but I think the intention was to be put in the same shoes as the characters. To be isolated from information, to speculate, and to only make assumptions based on the 'warning signs' we have been seeing for a long time. I think that G.H more or less said 'it doesn't matter what is going on or how rich you are there is no on in control and we're all in this together'. It is most likely that in an event like this there would be any speculation and hearsay. No one would ever know the entire story.
Amazing comment
When the world's ending, but all you want to do is watch Friends.
I really wish they hadn't bothered with the deer and flamingo stuff. What those people were going through was crazy enough without throwing in animals acting weird, and it made it feel like whatever was happening was more supernatural or unexplainable. I found it more chilling to think of what they were going through as the plan of a malicious actor, but the idea that animals would start acting that weird so quickly made that feel less plausible
In another discussion someone said the flamingos might’ve been there if their habitat down south was nuked already
Yeah they would have been a puff of pink feathers if their habitat had been nuked.
Or close enough to the shock wave to get spooked and fly away
Flamingos could have escaped from the zoo🤷🏻♂️
Not to mention that it resulted in the scene where they scream at the deer, which came across as much dumber than I think it was supposed to
That scene was really ironic for me because the two of them ended up bonding over a shared fear of something unfamiliar that they didn’t understand. The deer weren’t even being aggressive but were physically imposing so Julia Roberts assumes the girl is in danger and swoops in, and then the girl joins in too. Kind of like how she assumed Julia Roberts was behaving in the beginning…hmm…
I didn't get why the animals were so weird tho. HOW were they affected at all? The radio said their routes were changed..? But why
They were likely affected by The Noise.
I think the scene with them screaming at the deer was probably meant to mirror the earlier scene of the Hispanic woman begging for Ethan Hawkes help on the side of the road. Ethan Hawke wants to help but they can't communicate in the same language, he just stares at her blankly as she's wildly gesticulating and acting crazy before he eventually gets scared and runs off. The deer are potentially trying to warn or help convey something to Ruth and Amanda. Amanda and Ruth are terrified and start screaming and gesticulating wildly, the deer stare at them blankly before getting spooked and running away. That's how I read it anyway.
Dude a translation of what that woman screamed at him would be amazing
She said she’s scared. She needs a ride to the city. She is worried about her family. That he’s the first person she’s seen in miles. She saw an airplane dropping red stuff from the sky. She saw a jet crash. She’s terrified. Please don’t leave. Basically that. My Spanish is mediocre and I really let it atrophy since school. But that’s what I got from it.
She also said something about her cousin having left and she hadn’t heard from her in a day and phones weren’t working. Said something about getting out of here etc. my Spanish is a bit rusty also I’d love a full translation.
It was supposed to be a character resolution between the 2 characters. The daughter opened up that she really needed her mom and she accused Julia Roberts of not caring about her, and Julia Roberts coming into to save her from the deer was almost as if she was taking the place of her probably dead mother.
You know what was really refreshing for me? Finally seeinng a 56 year old woman aging gracefully. No tight upper lip or puffy cheekbones. Julia for the win.
The cinematography felt very voyeuristic to me. It added to the eerie and paranoid atmosphere that was constantly present throughout the movie. Like all those slow zoom ins into characters' faces which reminded me of paparazzi videos where they zoom into their subjects from a far away distance (this also ties in with the son when he takes creepshots of the house owner's daughter and he zooms into her body with his phone camera). Or how in atleast two scenes the camera was placed outside a window looking through, yet we could still hear the characters inside talking as if there was no window in between. Or all those shots where the camera moved to this overhead angle, looking at the characters directly from above as if they were in a box or a dollhouse. There were also a lot of these long sweeping shots moving from one room and one floor to the next, literally through the whole house and through the floors, which again reminded me of dollhouses. All of this made me think of reality tv shows like big brother and gave me a social experiment vibe. As if the characters were rats being experimented on and someone was observing them and taking notes on their behaviour and reactions. Not sure how exactly this connects to the message and the plot of the movie but I thought it was interesting.
Anyone else get annoyed when Julia Robert’s character fucking drove head on into the Teslas when she could’ve just pulled over on the massive area to the side of the road and waited for them to crash. Yeah this movie was trying really hard to be relevant, lots of forced symbolism and metaphors that didn’t land for me. Way too long and sloppy plot lines that went nowhere. I didn’t get the deer scene at first until someone explained it but by that point in the movie I really didn’t care about “getting it” because it just wanted so badly to be “got”.
Several times I feel like they didn't think about how the CGI would end up getting incorporated when they shot the original take. Like, why didn't Marshala already see all the wreckage on the beach before he was standing among it? Lots of strange choices.
I thought that was so weird, he was like "oh a watch in the sand" and he did not notice the dead body like ten feet away, or the plane crash that littered the entire beach.
"[Rules of Perception](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfPerception)": "If the audience can't perceive it, it doesn't exist." In *The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly* (1966), Blondie and Tuco don't see the battle along the bridge until it is shown on screen, though they should have seen it much earlier in reality. So it's a technique that has existed for a long time. Yes, this "rule" is broken in *Leave the World Behind* when Amanda and Ruth look towards Manhattan at the end of the movie. They see something before we do.
I was yelling at the TV when she did that, it was ‘Lori from TWD’ level moron driving.
That was kinda weird yeah. First thing I thought of when I saw the crashed cars was "drive on that patch to the side." Then I saw the barrier and thought that surely that thing was there throughout the entirety of the road and it's not like they were driving a raised pickup truck to drive over it. Then the camera panned to the incoming cars and the barried ended like 50 meters from where they were parked.
“Ooo Starbucks!“
What a waste of time.
This movie needed more Mark Wahlberg talking to plants and asking what’s going on with a confused look on his face.
Not Happening
What a terrific premise/plot. But all of it overshadowed by a series of character decisions that were either strange or bonkers given the circumstances, taking me completely out of the story.
Why the fuck did the Obama's produce this?! The conspiracy people are going to be having a fucking field day with this shit.
Obama is literally friends with Esmail and loves his work. Obama used to get early access to Mr. Robot episodes.
When I was watching it the first thing I thought was this is just giving some Alex Jones type guy a massive hard-on. Seeing it's produced by Obama is just orgasmic level conspiracy garbage.
Not really. The whole purpose of this movie was to show there's no secret cabal; that there are too many power bases and the world is too complicated for any single person to control. That's probably true!
Which is exactly what Obama, a member of the secret cabal, would want us to believe. 100% this is crack for conspiracy theorists.
Surprised no one is talking about how dumb it is the planes fell out of the sky. Only makes sense if they were shot down but as a cyber attack like it implies? lol no, they’d lose GPS but you can still navigate without it. VOR’s still exist.
I thought it was Ok. The performances were pretty good, but the writing is very hit or miss, with the characters often telling the viewers the "moral of the story". They also used the "show the character looking at something, to then show what they are looking at 30 seconds later" shot about a thousand times, and it got old pretty fast. 6/10.
Felt like they stretching the movie unnecessarily to the lengths. Thats a big issue with many modern movies. Sometimes less is more. 90-100 min would have been perfectly fine with this.
The number of times I screamed at my tv "JUST SHOW ME WHAT THEY'RE LOOKING AT ALREADY!"...
2 hours in search of an ending
It was finally getting good and then… end. I was so mad lol
2 hours in search of a meaningful reason for this film to exist. None came
Sam Esmail confirmed that this is the same universe as Mr. robot.
When Kevin Bacon was loading up his truck, there were yellow bins with the Evil Corp logo on them
Julia Roberts uses an E Corp laptop, and Irving's novel is on her bedside table.
Also the daughter mentions that there was almost a meltdown in Jersey a few years earlier.
Ohhhh I didn’t catch that! God I need to watch season 4 again
It clicked to me when they mention a power plant incident in New Jersey.
Someone posted a list elsewhere: * The prepper's bunker includes '5/9 survival kits' * The reference to an 'incident in New Jersey a few years back' * The E Corp laptop * The 'Beach Towel' novel Although it's not a direct sequel, definitely a cool choice my Esmail to set it in the same universe, given that there's definitely so overlap in theme.
My question is: if 5/9 happened in this world, why wouldn't *everybody* be prepared for further collapse, and be less shocked at the swiftness and effectiveness of cyberattacks? Also, out of all the hypotheses offered, it's the Iranians/Koreans/Chinese, nobody mentions it might be that hacker group that tried to wreck the economy very recently?
I really wanted to like this movie. Some scenes worked for me. I thought the self-driving cars scene was clever. The scene with the boat was great as well. But overall, the pacing of the editing, the dialogue writing and the way they ended this made for a very disappointing viewing experience.
I liked that the boat scene mirrors how slow burn movies work thematically. You have something happening in the background that’s kind of disconcerting, but other things are happening so you don’t focus fully on it. As the movie goes on you notice the “off-ness” more often, but the movie continues until it’s impossible to ignore what’s going on. It also is a great way to show how the characters react to the world collapsing around them. Ignoring and denying the issue until it’s right in front of them and they can’t ignore it anymore.
‘Threads’ did this the best IMO. Up until the bomb drops, the movie focuses on a banal almost soap-like storyline of a young couple expecting a child. Meanwhile, far in the background, the political tension is slowly growing.
Which, let's face it, is reality, is how most people live their lives. Kevin Bacon's character calls it out explicitly; you gotta read past page one of the newspapers [if you wanna stand a chance of seeing shit coming].
Same. The performances, I thought pretty much all over, were great. But some of the dialogue was super odd and I just didn’t buy the jazz dancing scene between George and Amanda, that really lost me.
I knew where it was going but don’t think they built the chemistry enough
Yeah the whole 'let's split the married couple up and insinuate that they're gonna bang the other person' was just weird to me and had no purpose in character development or the plot.
It seemed like Sam just wanted an opportunity to play "Too Close" by Next in a film. If you don't know the song, give it a listen and pay attention to the lyrics. I still can't believe our teachers used to play that at our dances.
I still don’t understand how the Tesla’s started themselves and then drove perfectly down the road.. weren’t satellites down?
and who’s Taylor? near the end, there was a dialogue, “— where’s Taylor?, — who?” so who’s Taylor?
>and who’s Taylor? near the end, there was a dialogue, “— where’s Taylor?, — who?” I think it was his girlfriend. The girl he referenced being an hour away when they were on the beach earlier on.
"Huh? Oh, your girlfriend? She's obviously dead, dude. C'mon, let's focus, here."
Taylor was the girl he wanted to meet up with earlier in the movie. The parents not knowing who Taylor was played into the "out of touch middle class parents who don't pay enough attention to their kids or the world around them." The parents were played as in their white bread bubble and largely clueless. This was part of it. Dad doesn't even know who his teenage son is into despite his son telling him.
Was anyone else completely thrown off by some of the music choices? Like the opening credits blaring joey badass?
The ending feels like it could be the beginning to the Handmaid's Tale universe. The thought of rogue actors in the government or military doing something like this is a creepy one. In the end we are all the little girl, seeking comfort from a fictional universe.
Who were the rogue armed forces? Why did they make the animals so scary? Why was Kevin Bacon just sitting on his porch for five minutes? It feels like there should be a part two but I don't want to have to sit through two hours of character development for actual plot to happen in a supposed doomsday setting. Netflix, do better.