I can’t remember the last time I reacted this negatively to a film’s ending. The premise: A vacationing family led by Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke find themselves in an unraveling world — a ship barrels ashore while they are luxuriating on a beach; then cell phones and internet quit working (the ultimate horror). It goes further downhill from there in a what’s-going-on puzzle that continually teases the viewer with vague clues such as mysterious animal behavior. Meanwhile, another couple arrives to add cultural and political tension to the mix (groans).
The movie strongly reminded me of M. Night Shyamalan’s notorious The Happening (with less wind) and, to a lesser extent, Stephen King’s novel Cell. At its best, Leave the World Behind weaves several tense threads together in thrilling fashion and achieves a compounding sense of dread, but the film then simply ends as things appear on the verge of greater calamity without providing any resolution apart from the daughter's quest to see the final episode of Friends. I know that sometimes a filmmaker wants us to be left with a puzzle to ponder, but it just doesn’t work here. It’s an infuriating ending, and, while I do not condone violence, it left me wanting to throw large objects at director Sam Esmail.
Now streaming on Netflix // 2 hours 21 minutes // 2.5 stars out of 5
