Like “Testament” — the 1983 made-for-TV movie that imagined the fallout, both nuclear and psychological, after an atomic bomb is dropped on American soil — “Leave the World Behind” depicts a plausible doomsday scenario from the perspective of a handful of ordinary characters. Not military experts, not scientists, but two families obliged to shelter under the same roof out in the East Hamptons while something scary unfolds a few hours away, off-screen, in New York.
As the stress-prone matriarch of one of these families, Julia Roberts utters a line that earns a big laugh near the start, partly because America’s sweetheart isn’t supposed to say something so dismissive of everyone else on the planet, but also because many audiences can probably relate. Staring out the window of her Park Slope apartment, she pronounces, “I fucking hate people.” Roberts’ character is named Amanda Sandford, but might as well be Karen, such is the rush-to-judgment, world-revolves-around-me approach she takes to others — an attitude writer-director Sam Esmail’s film allows audiences to share, for a time.
On a whim, Amanda books a getaway with her relatively laid-back husband Clay (Ethan Hawke), teenage daughter Rose (Farrah Mackenzie) and slightly older, low-key creepy son Archie (Charlie Evans). Instead of admiring the scenery as dad drives them out of town, Rose streams “Friends” on her tablet. But once they get to their destination — an elegant two-story mansion with private pool almost a mile from the nearest neighbor — all four manage to set aside their devices and unplug, for the most part.
What happens next unfolds almost like an M. Night Shyamalan movie (indeed, this film feels like a more satisfying version of the not-dissimilarly apocalyptic, but ultimately preposterous “Knock at the Cabin” from earlier this year). The Sandfords go to the beach, where an oil tanker spotted off in the distance appears to be headed straight for the shore, eventually running aground precisely where they’d planted their umbrella. Then their cell phone signal cuts out. Looking for news on the TV, all they can find is an “Unrecognized Emergency Alert” screen on every channel. But this is not a test.
So far, so slow. That’s the template Shyamalan established for this genre — let’s call them “death by dread” movies — in which gradually teasing terrifying personalities for two-thirds of the movie encourages our imaginations to do most, but not all, of the work. The creator of reason-to-be-paranoid series “Mr. Robot” and “Homecoming,” Esmail is prepared to deliver a plane crash and other freaky set-pieces as the plot requires. But “Leave the World Behind” is not a typical disaster movie. Adapted from Rumaan Alam behavior-study novel (and produced by both Roberts and the Obama’s Higher Ground Prods.), it’s more interested in how the human characters cope with the situation, and one another, than it is the particulars — or spectacle — of whatever emergency is unfolding.
To that end, the overlong movie kicks in when a well-dressed man, G.H. Scott (Mahershala Ali), and his twentysomething daughter Ruth (Myha’la Herrold) show up at the front door. Clay welcomes them in. Amanda clearly would have preferred that he didn’t. Is it because these strangers are Black? Posing such questions as subtext, both Esmail and Alam use the elaborate sci-fi premise to explore how prejudice and suspicion factor into how these characters navigate a crisis that technically ought to bring them together, but instead seems to divide them into tribes.
Amanda tentatively “allows” the newcomers to stay, obliging them to bunk in the basement-level guest suite. Ruth has words about the way the white folks are treating them, saying, “Trust should not be doled out easily to anyone, especially white people.” (These days, it’s easier for movie characters to utter such lines than to have Julia Roberts speak aloud what her character is thinking, lest audiences confound the character’s racism for her own opinions.) And it’s telling that even though this is technically G.H. and Ruth’s home, and they are far wealthier than the guests who rented it, the white people impose their will on the situation.
With limited intel about what’s happening — is it a cyberattack? could America be at war? — the Sandfords and the Scotts form an uneasy alliance far removed from civilization. But can this six-person microcosm reach some kind of workable arrangement, or is uncertainty enough to destroy the thin façade of civility that existed before the blackout? The movie eventually offers some semblance of an explanation for what’s going on, just as it inevitably circles back around to Kevin Bacon’s character, a neighbor seen stockpiling supplies during an early grocery run. But it’s three-prong theory on how to cripple an already-divided nation feels just as facile as its well-meaning message (tied up in the guilt Clay feels about abandoning a Spanish-speaking woman in obvious need of help).
In a way, the entire scenario benefits from ambiguity, which allows for certain almost-supernatural details, like a herd of deer that gather in the woods behind the house, staring menacingly at the humans. Later, in one of the movie’s more original moments, the Sandfords attempt to drive back to the city, only to find the expressway clogged by a massive pile-up of self-driving cars. Per Howard Hawks’ too-easy rubric, “A good movie is three good scenes and no bad scenes,” this one’s a keeper. The best scene may be the last, which comes as a surprise in a Netflix movie, considering the way the streaming service is one of the first casualties when internet connectivity goes down. It’s not quite a Shymalan-twist ending, but it does put a satisfied smirk on an otherwise distressing situation.