The psychological/end-of-the-world genre never really clicked with audiences even though it’s been around for a long time. Hollywood tried to ignite the genre recently. George Clooney made The Midnight Sky a few years ago and again it didn’t click with audiences. Earlier this year, M. Night’s Knock at the Cabin came and went quickly in theaters. Netflix decided to give the genre another go with Sam Esmail‘s Leave the Word Behind and since I’m a sucker for this genre, I really enjoyed it.

Amanda (Julia Roberts) is looking for a break from city life, she quickly arranges a beach house getaway for her husband, Clay (Ethan Hawke), and her children, Rose (Farrah Mackenzie) and Archie (Charlie Evans). They decided to leave NYC for the weekend and rented a luxurious home by the beach outside of the city. Odd events begin to occur during their vacation, including an oil tanker washing up on the beach and losing internet connection, leaving the family confused and scared. Later that night, the family was visited by G.H. (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter, Ruth (Myha’la). G.H. introduced himself as the owner of the house and asked Amanda and Clay if he and his daughter could spend the night in the basement because there was a blackout in the city. He’ll even refund half of what Amanda and Clay paid for the rental of the house.

Not sure what to make of the situation, Amanda is hesitant to let strangers be in the same house as her family and she shows a slight sign of racism towards the two black people. Clay on the other is more open and friendly towards the uninvited guests and tells the father and daughter that they can stay the night. With little to no information, the two families must learn to live together and try to figure out what’s happening to America. Later, communication is knocked out and more strangeness comes for the families, who watch as deer gather in the backyard, while Amanda receives fleeting messages about some sort of cyber-attack developing that’s happening in the city.

Based on the novel of the same name by Rumaan Alam, Sam Esmail pulled double duty as the screenwriter and director. I’ve never read the book, so I can’t confirm if it’s a true adaptation or not. The story could’ve been another one of Roland Emmerich’s disaster tales, but Easmail is more interested in telling a story about how people would behave in this type of situation. While there weren’t that many action or disaster elements in the movie, Easmail did include some impressive visual effects. The oil tanker crashed into the shore looked amazing, there’s also an airline crashing into the ocean and the biggest set piece was when Tesla cars clashed with each other because the autopilot function went haywire. Unlike other films in this genre, Easmail did give us a clear answer to what happened.

Since this is a mostly dialog-driven story, it needs to have good performances by the actors. The veteran actors were great and saved the movie from being boring or uninteresting. Roberts’ Amanda is someone who isn’t that happy with her life and marriage and shows signs of prejudice towards G.H. but warms up to him once she gets to know more about who he is. Ali’s G.H. is presented more as the hero of the story but also as someone who knows about what’s going on in the outside world but refuses to let that information out. Kevin Bacon showed up later as the creepy neighbor who refused to help the families when one of the kids got sick.

Could Leave the World Behind been better as a straight-up disaster picture? Maybe, but for me, I think the way it was told worked much better. The answer to what happened is so realistic it made me scared after I finished watching because it did happen a few times in real life, albeit on a smaller scale.

So have you seen Netflix’s Leave the World Behind? Well, what do you think?

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