The way the world falls apart, in the new trailer for Sam Esmail’s Leave the World Behind, is deeply unclear and unsettling. Why is there a road covered in bumper-to-bumper abandoned white Teslas? Why is a giant boat headed for a beach? Where is the terrible sound coming from? What is the red thing in the sky? What kind of cyberattack is the news warning about?
Out on Long Island, in a beautiful house, Amanda (Julia Roberts) and her husband Clay (Ethan Hawke) have no idea what’s happening. But amid the chaos, the occupants of the rented house have returned, and things are more than a little awkward.
Leave the World Behind is based on the novel by Rumaan Alam, and also stars Mahershala Ali as G.H., whose house Amanda and Clay are vacationing in. (Their own bedroom is so large it’s somewhat hard to understand why they’re so desperate to get away, but I digress.) Here’s the synopsis:
In this apocalyptic thriller from award-winning writer and director Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot), Amanda (Academy Award winner Julia Roberts) and her husband Clay (Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke), rent a luxurious home for the weekend with their kids, Archie (Charlie Evans) and Rose (Farrah Mackenzie). Their vacation is soon upended when two strangers — G.H. (Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la) — arrive in the night, bearing news of a mysterious cyberattack and seeking refuge in the house they claim is theirs. The two families reckon with a looming disaster that grows more terrifying by the minute, forcing everyone to come to terms with their places in a collapsing world.
The book is unnerving enough; in the hands of Sam Esmail, it’s sure to be even more so. Esmail told Vanity Fair, “A trope of the disaster genre is that you’re set up with a few characters who are divided and then they come together and defeat or overcome or get through what’s occurring. But that is just not true to real life. So the work begins now. It’s not really a message film, it’s more of a reflection on where we’re at as a society. But if there is a message, it’s a warning.”
Leave the World Behind is in select theaters November 22nd, and on Netflix December 8th.
This post was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.
