Leave the World Behind: Open Your Eyes

In the year 2020, Rumaan Alam, an American writer from a Bangladeshi background, releases a dystopia-like, soft horror and heavy drama novel titled Leave the World Behind. Fasttrack to 2023, Netflix releases the film adaptation of the book, directed by Sam Esmail and, most notably, produced by none other than  Barack and Michelle Obama. It’s odd to see such names play a big part in a film where the United States is supposedly under attack by a coalition of unnamed agencies. This is just the umbrella of all interest that drives the film.

Looking at the film itself, it goes through a constant loop of driving up to suspense, crashing into almost nothing, and repeating itself until the last shocking forty minutes of the film where if you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t understand what you were watching. Even if you did watch and still don’t understand what you saw, it proves that the film was all over the place. The film is bizarre, as its extremely odd to find a movie where the plot is lackluster, but the writing makes you scratch your head to satisfy an insatiable itch.

The film starts off by Ethan Hawke’s character, Clay, waking up to find his wife Amanda, played by Sandra Bullock, packing up for a vacation she booked at a getaway house in Long Island. They leave New York City with their two kids, Rosie (a teenage daughter hooked on her tablet, obsessed with the show Friends) and Archie (the couple’s older teenage son). The couple, at a very strange occasion, meet G.H. Scott, the owner of the vacation house played by Mahershala Ali, and his college-age daughter, Ruth, played by Myha’la. Together, these two families seemingly watch the world they know crumble around them with more questions than answers, just like the viewers.

What makes this film stand out is the symbolism and the accurate depictions of what could be today, tomorrow, and without even realizing it, yesterday.

It starts off with a variety of different attitudes and mental states. The beginning of the movie sees Amanda explaining to her husband why she booked a vacation, saying “Well, when I couldn’t fall back asleep this morning, I came over here. To watch the sunrise. And I saw all these people starting their day with such tenacity. Such verve. All in an effort to…… make something of themselves. Make something of our world. I felt so lucky to be a part of that. But then, I remembered… what the world is actually like. And I came to a more accurate realization. I hate people.” Surely, we have all felt like this before. When we feel too much like this, a perfect getaway is healthy. Then there’s her daughter’s obsession with Friends. As they drive to the beautiful house on Long Island and signal is out of reach, her show stops, and she is forced to point her eyes anywhere but the rendered-useless technology. In a way, this all pays homage to the grandeur theme of escapism and how, even without realizing it, we as a population have been socially engineered to gravitate towards it. In Amanda’s case, she wants to be left alone. In Rose’s case, the adventures of Ross, Rachel, and the rest of the New York gang are far more interesting than whatever is accessible to a thirteen-year-old. Escapism, through its various forms, are quite frankly a large part of American culture, and because it’s so common practice, nobody even bats an eye anymore.

Around the world, it’s also a common idea that Americans aren’t as brilliant as people from other countries, partly because we choose to live in a comfortable fictional world instead of reality. In Leave the World Behind, we see the characters unable to turn to their small escapes and are forced to face the reality of Death to America. While a variety of unexplainable things take place, have notes drop down from the sky, saying “Death to America” while being written in Arabic has to take the number one spot. The three words are a heavy political slogan often used in Middle Eastern countries, such as Iran, Afghanistan, and the list goes on. This highlights the idea that America has made multiple enemies that have grown stronger over time, and look to do us harm. However, no one specific country is made out to be the perpetrator of the delivery. This leads to the speculation that America may be taken down by a coalition of foreign powers, or that the American public, after living in la-la land for so long, have no concept of who are enemies even are anymore.