Leave the World Behind

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⭐ 7.5/10

(Originally written by Tim)

One of my favourite TV shows is Mr. Robot, so I was excited for Sam Esmail making a movie starring Julia Robots, Ethan Hawke, and Mahershala Ali. I think this movie has a great setup, and lots of cool moments, but ultimately was a bit disappointing.

This is an apocalypse scenario, which means there are some great suspenseful moments as weird stuff happens and our characters are off the grid and just getting this weird trickle of information. It reminded me a bit of Lost, more and more questions being asked with so few hints being given, and that excited me. But like all movies/shows like this the speculation is more exciting than the answer, and I felt that the ending of this movie was incredibly weak. The final moment is supposed to be kind of funny, probably saying something about our reliance on media to get us through the unthinkable - I was definitely watching this thinking of covid. But I knew that final moment was coming 15 minutes into the movie, and there is a line leading up to it I thought was so corny. Hard to explain without spoiling so whatever.

The acting was great, although the dialogue felt a bit overwritten? Pretty sure its based on a book, so who knows, but just watch the first scene and you will probably agree that people don't really talk like that. I think it is almost certainly intentional, I just couldn't understand the Julia Roberts character at all.

I loved Mahershela and Hawke in this, and early on I was happy to be back in the Esmail style. Mr. Robot kind of introduced me to the power of direction and framing, with his really unique style with lots of negative space, character faces in the corner of the frames, and it was effective here for building tension, as you are constantly looking into the corners to try and find answers. Most of the movie is in this beautiful house, and the way the camera moved around in the house reminded me of some Hitchcock, and a lot of my favourite Mr. Robot moments. Sadly though, I thought he went a little overboard with the swinging and rotating camera stuff, and by the end I found it very distracting. It certainly helps build tension and a sense of unease, I just wish it had been used a bit more sparingly.

Anyways, its a movie that had all the ingredients, and some really memorable set pieces, but I just completely lost interest in the last 30 minutes. There is this weird info dump at the end that felt like it was from another movie, and then it was over. My main take away is that I want to see Mahershala in more movies, what a beautiful man with a beautiful voice.

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