Rating: C-
Dir: Sam Esmail
Star: Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Myha’la
I guess congratulations are in order to Mr. Esmail, for portraying an apocalypse in the least interesting way possible. The approach seems largely deliberate, in that the families involved are consciously placed on the edge of things, occupying a spacious holiday home on Long Island. From there, they pretty much need a telescope to view the increasing fall of civilization. A traffic jam of hacked Teslas here, a small flock of flamingos in the capacious swimming-pool there. But the fridge is apparently well-stocked and continues to function. Armageddon, it appears, is something which only affects the poors. Here, the most traumatic thing experienced is an inability to finish the season of Friends being streamed.
This is an exaggeration, but not much. The most disturbing thing is actually the huge executive producer credits Barack and Michele Obama get. It isn’t just the usual, token gesture either. According to the director, Barack “gave me notes on everything, from theme to the disaster elements to character, and it was really from the script stage through post-production.” Such enthusiasm for the apocalypse from an ex-president is frankly creepy. Events here unfold as the Sanford family take an impromptu vacation. There’s ad exec mom Amanda (Roberts), college professor Clay (Hawke), and teenage children, Rose and Archie. Low-key collapse ensues. An oil tanker runs aground (top). The Internet goes down. Clay is chased by a drone. And the holiday home’s owner, G.H. Scott (Ali), shows up to take shelter, along with his super annoying daughter, Ruth (Myha’la).
It’s closer to a character study set against backdrop of Something Bad, with the interplay between the Sanfords and the Scotts more important than events outside. You’re mainly left to figure out a cause and perpetrators yourself, though the film definitely pushes you towards a direction by the end. The problem is, I found almost everybody here smug, abrasive or some combination of the two. Watching them bicker is not my idea of fun, and with this running a languid 141 minutes, there’s a lot of downtime between the cool shit shown in the trailer. Which is, admittedly, still cool. Esmail also has some visual style that is fun to watch, though occasionally is distracting in a “Look at my visual style!” way.
I found it difficult to care much about anyone. The most empathy I felt was when Archie’s teeth started falling out, not something I’d wish on anyone, even an upper-middle class teenage brat. Otherwise, hard to give a damn about people who say things like “That’s where our Venn diagrams intersect.” This is an actual line given to Ruth. Mind you, she also plays the race card, while simultaneously being convinced Clay wants to fuck her. Twenty minutes in her company and I would be running, not walking, towards the Vaguepocalypse. It’s significant that I not only forgot the film’s title, I did so while we were watching it. I think this is probably intended to be a message movie. Just do not ask me what the message is.
Jim McLennan
Rating: D+
Dull but well executed and, if I were you, I wouldn’t bother reading any further. It’s ‘free’ on Netflix and yet is still not worth the price of admission.
A neurotic, paranoid and misanthropic Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) decides on an impromptu get-away with husband (Ethan Hawke) and kids, to an idyllic remote definitely not a cabin in the woods, complete with sauna, swimming pool, helipad, small airport…
…okay, so I have a side and a half of notes on this one, and am already struggling to bother writing any more about this film… however, no-one wants to see Jim angry (again), so I’ll plough on for a while longer…*
…and then an oil-tanker bulls-eyes the beach upon which the family are reclining as they bicker and whinge and are generally tetchy. Yeah. Tetchy! That’s the word for the mood of this film. That and mercurial. Or perhaps uneven, incoherent, contradictory, frustrating… are you getting my feelings yet…?
The arrival of the house’s owner and daughter, running from ‘the storm’, triggers the start of plenty of personal friction, which is just as well as nothing else is actually happening, apart from the writers playing a rather tiresome game of endless curveball-throwing.
“The truth is, no-one’s in control”
Yeah! I got that feeling from the unevenness and vague feeling of hotchpotch that imbues the film. However, and despite the ‘suspenseful’ mood-music grating, the sense of impending crisis is compelling – as satellites fail and the internet becomes as silent as the airwaves and phones.
Amongst the patchy and unevenly shared yet growing paranoia there are some very cute and surreal moments – not least the pile-up of unmanned self-driving cars that has blocked seemingly the only viable route out of their getaway, back into the city. Oh, and there’s a laugh-out-loud exchange with Danny (Kevin Bacon), a local prepper.
* …nope… too bored… so I’ll finish with these notes, verbatim:
So many chips on so many shoulders, so much psychodrama. It’s exhausting. I’d rather the fucking aliens arrive and slaughter everyone.
A future fable of modern America? A maga-fable? A country turned in, on and against itself, fuelled by extremism.
Nicely and inventively shot. It’s slow, it’s compelling but dull. It’s complicated yet stupid. It’s pointless. Ignore.
Coda: Leave the World Behind is a 2020 novel by Rumaan Alam
Phil Brown