[Review: Potato Score 49%] ‘Leave the World Behind’… Tesla’s Defeat
The era of the sitcom ‘Friends’ filled with friendships, love, and laughter that seemed straight out of a novel, has passed. The world we live in is amplifying discrimination and conflict and enduring divisions. On the brink of destruction, where are we headed, leaving this world behind?
It’s the question posed by the Netflix original movie ‘Leave the World Behind’.
What answer should we give? It’s hard to come up with a response. Truth is, I don’t feel like answering. It’s difficult to empathize with the stimuli the movie provides. The question posed by a movie that only builds up from beginning to end lacks power.
No matter how much it’s a hot topic produced by former U.S. President Obama and his wife, and even if it’s a film in which Hollywood superstar Julia Roberts not only starred but also participated in the production, it’s inevitable to feel disappointed. After watching the movie, Elon Musk strangely comes to mind. Those who have seen the film may nod at that decisive scene.
If you exaggerate a bit, the lingering defeat of Tesla surpasses the movie’s excitement.
● The Terror of Cyber Attacks in a Luxury Vacation Home
Amanda (Julia Roberts), who lives in New York, one morning realizes that she and her husband have been working all year and impulsively prepares for a vacation. The Amanda family, who impulsively went on a vacation to a luxury house on Long Island near New York with her husband Clay (Ethan Hawke), a university professor, and their young daughter, witness a scene where a huge oil tanker drifts right in front of them while enjoying sunbathing on a peaceful beach.
From then on, strange things start to happen. Cell phones become inoperable, and Wi-Fi is not available. That night when everything stopped due to radio abnormalities, two strangers appeared outside the window and knocked on the door.
Scott (Mahershala Ali), dressed in a luxurious tuxedo, and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la Herrold) tell Amanda’s couple that they are the owners of the luxury house. But Amanda, as if she doesn’t believe it, repeatedly asks if it’s true. It’s as if she can’t believe that a black person owns such a high-end house.
From that night on, the two families staying together face a mysterious disaster where planes deviate from their course due to cyber attacks crash one after another, and even the glass windows break due to an unknown loud noise. Despite the outside world seeming to be in total panic, the luxury house in the forest, cut off from the world due to communication paralysis, becomes an ‘imperfect safe house’ for them.
‘Leave the World Behind’ continues the story without making anything clear. Through the story that Scott who worked with a military company, occasionally brings up, the audience has to struggle to deduce the disaster situation occurring in this movie. However, because only clues are scattered and the scattered hints are not intricately connected, the story ends blandly after building up for 141 minutes.
Amanda’s daughter stubbornly wearing a T-shirt with ‘NASA’ written on it is obsessed with the ‘old’ sitcom ‘Friends’ which is unusual for her age. The fact that she can’t watch the last episode of ‘Friends’ due to the cut-off broadcast makes this girl more frustrated than the disaster that has befallen the family now.
The audience is just as frustrated.
The symbolism of deer herds occasionally appearing in luxurious homes, the identity of the forces behind cyber attacks, the significance of the Middle East and Korea being briefly designated as terror states, and the direct mention of China-all amidst the mystery of the origin of a bomb detonating in the heart of Manhattan.
The movie is based on Rumaan Alam’s novel ‘Leave the World Behind’.
The book, published in 2020, drew attention to dealing with the reality caused by conflict and isolation, intertwined with the situation of the Corona pandemic that terrified the world at the time. It was highly praised as a work that delves into the psychology of characters engulfed in anxiety in front of an uncertain reality and future. As a result, it was produced as a movie through the planning of former President Obama and his wife.
However, the movie seems to miss the characteristics of the ‘movie’ genre, although it wants to discuss a certain topic. The dramatic fun that the movie should inherently have is unfortunately not supported as much as the clear theme.
By. Max Movie
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