An Apocalyptic Thriller to Savour || Leave the World Behind Film Review

The word "slowburn" as one of the descriptions piqued my interest when I found this film. Although I had recently watched a film that had a similar thing, this one was going to be something about a dystopian time; apocalyptic would be more apt. A snippet from the film fueled my interest even more.

Leave the World Behind sounded more like people were going to evacuate the earth or something. I had missed that kind of film where I would get to see spaceships and some extraterrestrial drama, and the title and the snippet I watched made me expect that. It was nothing like that, however.

The 2023 film is an adaptation of a book of the same name, written by Rumaan Alam. With a two-hour runtime, it comprises elements that are ominous, thrilling, and intruiging. The most exciting thing for me, however, was the cinematography.

What the film turns out to be is something rather thought-provoking when one reads in between the lines. Or should I say in between the scripts? In the end, we realise something quite apparent about human nature and just how we are our own undoing.

Amanda doesn't like people and being around them, and so she wakes up one day with the idea of getting away from the city with her family to a house on Long Island. Her family, Clay her husband, Archie and Rose her son and daughter, are obsessed with their technology.

As soon as they reach the house, they begin to lose reception and internet services. Shortly afterwards, they began to experience blackouts. Then a family shows up in the middle of the night at their doorstep, asking to spend the night because they're far from home, with some shady explanation.

A series of events unfold, global hysteria ensues, and everyone is cut off from themselves with no cellular, internet service, or electricity. Things escalate with every turn, and the two families are stuck together to try and survive.

I didn't think I would sit for the entire film in one go because it was two hours long. It was when there were about 10 minutes left that I realised how much time had passed. What this implies is that I was engrossed for most of the film. And there are certain things that I appreciate about it. There were also some things that raised my eyebrows in the film.

The film is split into five parts. Each of those parts is not exactly a different section of the film but just points signifying different occurences in the apocalyptic world, or more like different levels. I particularly like this, as it wasn't something conventionally done in movies. It made me feel like there was still more to come in addition to the experience that I was already enjoying.

Considering the genre and runtime of the film and the fact that it was going to be a slowburn, I had prepared myself to be patient and expect the development of the story and its characters to take some time. But shortly after the introduction scenes, it had already started getting intriguing for me.

From start to finish, I kept watching closely, trying to wrap my head around what was going on. There were strange occurrences with no plausible explanation, like a ship crashing into a shore and a plane falling out of the sky into the ocean.

The dialogues between the characters were a mixture of intense, witty, spooky, casual, and hilarious in many cases. I enjoyed just how certain characters interacted with themselves. And considering that there were different ages of characters, there was a whole dynamic to it all.

The storyline was engagingly progressive. I felt carried along through each scene and savoured every moment of it. Some things didn't quite add up, however. As much as I enjoyed the thrills, I couldn't help but question, in the back of my mind, the explanations for what I was watching. I hoped that I would find the answer in the end, but what I got didn't exactly suffice eventually. It wasn't a problem anyway, and there is a good reason.

The general idea I got from the film was how flawed we are as humans in nature. As much as we make the world what it is and becomes, we consequentially break it with our actions and how we treat ourselves in certain circumstances. A part of the film explains how this is so, and that's something I appreciate, but it didn't really suffice for the mysterious things that had happened earlier.

This film review would be incomplete without discussing the level of impression that I got from the cinematography of this film. I would say that I enjoyed the film mostly because it was just so hard to not notice and appreciate it.

For many parts of the film, I wondered just how they may have shot them. The camera work was so appealing that I was ravished by what I saw. There are certain nuances to different levels of storytelling in films that cinematography—lights, sets, camera work—contribute to. An enhanced experience was what I had with this film, thanks to the team behind the visual storytelling.

The music is something to point out. When we are talking about ominous, this film has a lot of sounds like that. At almost every point in time, I thought something was going to happen—something spooky or really chilling. It's not that there were false alarms, but that the sounds I heard all through set the vibes for a really thrilling experience.

The fact that I didn't exactly get the answers to some of the questions I had in my film didn't really affect the fact that I enjoyed it regardless. It was just alright for me the way it ended. The way it ended gave a hint that the film was also some sort of tribute to the late star of the American sitcom Friends that recently passed on, Matthew Perry.

This is an apocalyptic film to enjoy, especially when one just needs to unwind. It may not be perfect, but I recommend it regardless.

I'll give it a rating of 8.5/10.