A family getaway is interrupted when the individuals who were renting their home to a couple and their children return earlier than expected. While the two families must face a series of events as disturbing as they are incomprehensible, everyone questions their place in this world which seems to be collapsing.
Adapted from the novel of the same name, Leave the World Behind (The world after us) depicts an end of the world that perhaps awaits us where nothing has meaning and everything leads to our downfall. Produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, directed by Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot, Homecoming), this psychological thriller keeps the viewer intrigued from start to finish. If we ultimately obtain some of the answers to the questions that the film sows, it is above all the reflection provoked that remains with us.
We also have the superb script, the delightful direction of photography and the impeccable acting of the main actors. Among them: Julia Roberts (Amanda) and Ethan Hawke (Clay), who play a couple who decide on a whim to take their two children for a weekend on Long Island, and Mahershala Ali (G. H.) and Myha’la (Ruth), who play a father and his daughter, forced to live as guests in their own house, rented by the first two.
After the internet and telephone lines are completely cut off, other surprising events occur and each time add a layer of complexity to the plot. The forced cohabitation between the two families brings out tensions that only human stupidity can provoke. But in the midst of apocalyptic events and growing concerns, the characters question themselves when they realize that they are not enemies, but rather that they share a common enemy, invisible, insidious, indecipherable.
We understand at the same time as the protagonists that their world is collapsing. They are trying to understand what is happening to them and so are we, on the other side of the screen. We also wonder what, in what we observe, could happen in the real world.
That’s what’s most frightening (and captivating), ultimately, about dystopian films like this: fiction, as terrifying as it is, really isn’t that far from reality. .
When so much mystery hangs around for so long, the outcome has to be satisfying. Here, we get explanations that do not cover all our questions. Some people may be a little frustrated by this. Others will see it as an opportunity to form their own idea. We are among those who accept that we don’t know everything, that mystery is part of the game, and that’s good. And then, fortunately, the conclusion of World after us lives up to the intrigues that precede it.
In theaters and on Netflix from December 8
Psychological thriller
Leave the World Behind (V.F.: The world after us)
Sam Esmail
With Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke
2:21 a.m.