MIDNIGHT REVIEWS Leave the World Behind
Midnight Reviews features reviews and thought pieces written and edited by a parent, at night, after bedtime.
This afternoon’s movie…
“Which Mr Men did you want to watch this time, mate?”
“Want to be Mr Shout, Daddy.”
“You want to watch Mr Shout? Is there a Mr Shout?”
“No Daddy, not watch. Be Mr Shout.”
“Oh you want to be Mr Shout. What does Mr Shout do?”
(child shouts, incredibly loudly)
“I didn’t need to ask that, did I?”
Review: Forgoing the traditional two-dimensional projection, the multi-sensory experience known as Mr Shout will leave partakers feeling something akin to shock and awe. Whilst the obvious targeting of the ears leaves a lot to be desired (sound design being rather one-note), the experience does quickly evolve into tactile nuances, such as finding out new ways that knees can bend and discovering the pressure a child’s jaws can exert on the nose.
The evening review…
LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND (2hr 18mins)
Directed by: Sam Esmail
Featuring: Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Myha’la
Synopsis: A family decide to leave the city and take some relaxation time in the country. A father and daughter show up on their doorstep, claiming to be the owners of the house the family are renting. Tensions rise and simmer as things start going wrong all around them, leading to choices having to be made about who and what to trust.
Review: As Leave the World Behind began, I saw what I thought was a film company logo, a logo celebrating some self-aggrandising conglomerate spreading itself over all of us as we sat beneath it, before I realised it was the opening shot of the movie, showing the planet Earth. I’m not sure if it was intended but it certainly sat me in my seat and got me (un)comfortable. Leave the World Behind is an incredibly tense, taut look at how human beings can act when put under incredible stress.
The script is extremely clever about letting us twist in the wind.
The film starts as it means to go on, with Amanda (Roberts) gleefully, excitedly, telling her husband Clay (Hawke) all about her spontaneous plans for a family holiday. Clay, as he is throughout the entirety of the first half of the movie, is relaxed and optimistic despite the rush and asks Amanda why the sudden sojourn. The answer is dark and scathing, just as the film intends to be.
Tension is what the film is great at building and it’s this extremely dark humour that cuts through, not so often that we could call this a comedy, but enough to relieve the viewer. I think without these moments Leave the World Behind would be too much for most. The ending in particular is delightfully dark and elicited belly laughs from me after all the horrendous events that came before. A lecturer in this movie talks about one of their students being able to reconcile the matter of a story reflecting the world, whilst also being an escape from it, and it’s this fine line that Leave the World Behind treads not carefully, but confidently. The morality of this tale, the same as in Adam McKay’s strange, lacking Don’t Look Up is that we could see and solve our problems, if only we deigned to look.
For this movie, it’s all about context. Flamingos arriving at a swimming pool. Deer standing and staring, unflinching. Self-driving cars crashing. None of these examples on their own are particularly creepy but the way the film makers use these off-kilter sequences filled me with dread.
This is the movie that Don’t Look Up could’ve been.
While we may side with certain characters and dislike others at first, our allegiances are quickly put to the test, placing us, in a way, in the characters’ shoes. Everyone is given a time to shine; everyone is also given a time to show what a horrible person they are. Amanda is particularly scathing from the get-go as G.H. Scott (Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la) knock on their door. A character we thought was easy-going is instead switched off and lazy, and in one moment cruel in a horribly benign way. Even the best of the group, head held high, quickly succumbs to this pressure as he lashes out at someone that a minute before he called a friend.
All of these performances are fantastic. Some are able to be showier than others (Ali’s character has a fantastic story to tell revealing both the plot’s dark roots and his character’s own back story), but even the more discreet, restrained performances are wonderful. I would begin describing stand-out ones, but everyone in the movie is great and it would be wrong to give anyone plaudits ahead of the others. The simple premise (can you trust this person?) enables everyone to shine.
This is the movie that Don’t Look Up could’ve been. There are hints that this is a film about life during and perhaps after COVID (everyone separated by miles of empty road, unable to meaningfully meet; people not being able to walk past the threshold of a house), or is it perhaps a film about natural disasters we are either causing or ignoring, or both? Or is it simply a dark comedy of manners? Certain stylistic ticks, fitting in perfectly with the rest of the movie, make it otherworldly.
The script is extremely clever about letting us twist in the wind in regards to whether the supposed home owners are actually the home owners (“You won’t believe me, but I left my ID at the symphony” and so on), before seemingly running out of steam and getting everyone to join hands in a makeshift team. That or, perhaps more accurately, this second plot of the movie is deemed more interesting by the film makers.
However, as the actual plot that moves the plot forward is revealed piece by piece, everything gets reduced and the film reveals itself to be about misinformation, which I suppose is apt at such a late stage. Everything threatens to fizzle out, though. It is not a coincidence that the film ends when it does, as once this truth is revealed the film almost falls into becoming a third different movie altogether. It just about gets away with it.
Unlike Don’t Look Up, but more like McKay’s other offering Vice, this movie left me feeling hollow inside. As the dark sky crept into my living room I felt the prevailing darkness of this movie invade my being like the piercing echo of so many gunshots.
As of writing, Leave the World Behind is available to watch on Netflix.
