Leave the World Behind

Facing the apocalypse in a unique way is not an easy thing to do in movies, but director/screenwriter Sam Esmail takes Rumaan Alam's 2020 novel and turns it into an unrelenting 2023 psychological thriller that captures the current extremist political landscape and isolationist world view with sharp acuity. No one real is explicitly mentioned, but so much of the threat presented in the spiraling plot felt not only relevant but palpable. It starts with a last-minute family vacation in a Long Island mansion and the two strangers who enter their lives. Julia Roberts plays an unapologetically mistrustful woman with familiar conviction, while Ethan Hawke does what he can as her laid-back husband. As the mysterious stranger, Mahershala Ali has to play it close to the vest, while Kevin Bacon has an effective turn late in the story. I could've done without some of the contrived camera angles and predictable music cues, but overall the film got me thinking what I would do under similar circumstances.