Leave the World Behind: The optimistic turn in a pessimistic world
Spoilers ahead.
Leave the World Behind (2023) almost falls victim to the usual milquetoast centrist liberal critiques of US society that frequent many films about the apocalypse, but saves itself at the end with an oddly optimistic vision.
We’re about two decades into apocalyptic thrillers emerging as a genre into itself. Inherently political, it carries the similar burden of sci-fi literature, where the ultimate cause of our inevitable end is not the aliens or monsters that come to invade, but the tensions and conflicts within ourselves which are at the heart of our dysfunctional society.
What we have in Leave the World Behind is a checklist of how a centrist elites would diagnose the issues in society (that specifically fueled Trump’s presidency). Racial pessimism; media disinformation; a lack of trust; middle class paranoia are all laid out as the true thematic reason why American society is disintegrating. Not Koreans or Iranians or the Chinese, but the fragility of social relations that will be the source of a civil war.
It’s a not very subtle film regarding these issues and the characters neatly slot into the necessary roles to fill out the story. Amanda, the protagonist, is the distrusting, unconscious racist; George is the servant to the ultra-rich readying their escape; Clay is the white man on the receiving end of misinformation, also too distrustful of a lady who can only speak Spanish; and the daughter Rose is the consumer of media, determined to watch the finale of Friends, which in a withering criticism Ruth, George’s older daughter, says (in a not an original critique) is a nostalgia for an imaginary past.
The characters don’t rise above their respective issues to be deep, rounded humans. But the film did maintain my interest on the tension between them and the unknown causes for what is happening, which they struggle to speculate on. They all communicate concepts, not converse like humans.
When the Sandford family depart to go to stay with Amanda’s sister in New Jersey it seems the ultimate acceptance that there can be no trust between the two families. But they return in a mirror image plea of George and Ruth, who earlier had to overcome the distrust and Amanda’s instinctive racism to be allowed into their house. (George is the homeowner, renting it to Amanda, Clay etc.)
When the characters are divided up for the ending they bring the conflict of ideas to their fruition. Amanda and Ruth are confronted by hordes of deer. Initially, Amanda was away from the situation, but opted to return when Ruth’s situation appeared hopeless and scare away the deer.
George and Clay go to a disheveled individualist Danny to source medication for Danny, who is well prepared for the apocalypse. George and Danny point guns at each other, but it is Clay’s appeal to the ‘I’ll do anything for my family’ that wins over Danny. They’re not so different after all and medication is handed over to help the son Archie, whose teeth were falling out.
Afterwards, in the car, George tells Clay that he needs to trust him, which the latter says he can. And they ride off. In both situations, trust is built.
The final scene zeroes in on the Friends obsessed daughter Rose, who going rogue and exploring her own solution to the apocalyptic situation, arrives at a house, where she finds a huge DVD collection. The final episode of Friends is turned on, to which the film ends on the theme song:
I’ll be there for you.
It’s a heavy-handed in its message of trust winning the day, but it sends the point home of an optimism that Americans can overcome the tensions that pervade society to come together, particularly in a dark time. It’s a somewhat unique message in an apocalyptic film that isn’t a blockbuster, as well as an indy-ish film that does tackle the key issues of American society head on.