2/26/2024 0 Comments Funny gta v wasted memeShe becomes the mouthpiece for Leave the World Behind’s lingering questions of the Sandfords’ possible racial biases, as if they (and the POV of white fragility they accompany) weren’t already obvious. Myha’la’s performance is certainly precise – she does an impeccable job when the character’s own dramatic layers are eventually revealed – but Esmail’s writing betrays her on occasion. As Ruth, a young, Black, Gen Z adult, she’s painted with the boisterous hues of someone always on the attack, and looking for a reason to put her flimsy theories into practice. Unfortunately, Myha’la is saddled with an awkward responsibility. is intimidating in one moment and gentle in the next, but Ali ensures that the difference between these two modes is razor thin. with an impeccable sense of duality, playing not only a man with hidden layers (which we see unearthed as the camera captures details the Sandfords don’t initially see), but also playing the object of Amanda’s fears. As Clay, Hawke tries to politely diffuse this strange situation, tip-toeing his way through careful de-escalation without offending his apparent hosts, but Roberts remains on edge as Amanda, a woman far less trusting and welcoming than her husband. That is, until night falls, and the white family is met with a pair of sharply dressed Black strangers – George “G.H.” Scott (Mahershala Ali) and his adult daughter Ruth (Myha’la) – who arrive at the door claiming to be the house’s owners, trying to talk their way inside with a story of a dangerous citywide blackout in NYC.Īn initial premise not too dissimilar from the first act of Barbarian – in which two strangers end up booking the same Airbnb – sets up character-centric intrigue through fine-tuned performances from masters of their craft. ![]() As Clay, Amanda, their teenage son Archie (Charlie Evans), and their younger daughter Rose (Farrah Mackenzie) relax on their first day at a fancy homestay, an apparent internet, phone, and cable outage prevents Rose from watching the finale of the ’90s sitcom Friends – her new TV obsession, and a surprisingly big part of Leave the World Behind’s plot and even its worldview – though the family thinks little of it, and even considers the inadvertent isolation a blessing. It's a wry and appropriately cheesy introduction to a film that deftly twists its screws, at least initially. ![]() The easygoing Clay is left with no option, especially when the sardonic, uptight Amanda practically states her reason for wanting to escape the city directly to the camera, as it crash-zooms in on her: “I fucking hate people.” A fairly well-off, middle-aged father of two, he wakes up to find that his wife, Amanda (Julia Roberts), has not only booked the whole family a weekend getaway on Long Island, but has packed their bags as well. ![]() We’re thrown into the plot just as suddenly as New Yorker Clay Sandford (Ethan Hawke) is. However, its attempts to weave meaningful reflections on modern America end up so flimsy and half-baked that the whole thing simply crumbles by the closing credits, with one of the most head-scratching final scenes and needle drops in recent memory. Robot creator Sam Esmail, the film traverses both personal and political paranoia in its tale of a family vacation gone awry. Led by a stellar ensemble and written and directed by Mr. Based on Rumaan Alam’s 2020 book of the same name, Leave the World Behind zig-zags in a number of intriguing directions but ends up unable to bear the weight of its own lofty ideas.
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