Leave the World Behind: Julia Roberts’s First Movie for Netflix
Leave the World Behind is Julia Roberts’s first movie for Netflix. It is based on Rumaan Alam’s famous literary thriller, which looks at how people act in a crisis that could lead to the end of the world.
The Plot
Amanda and Clay, played by Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke, are middle-class New Yorkers renting a luxury Airbnb on a week-long trip to Long Island with their two teenagers. The home is described online as a beautiful place to “leave the world behind.”
Their family’s vacation is ruined when the real owners of the house, G.H. (Mahershala Ali) and Ruth (Myha’la Herrold), show up at the door and ask to move in with their confused renters. This is because the East Coast has been hit by a scary blackout that has shut down the internet and cut off cell phones, leaving everyone in the dark as an Armageddon-like event happens.
The intrusion reveals something worse than the signs of the end of the world. In the book, Amanda has trouble accepting that G.H. and Ruth, who are black, can own this expensive house. Could they be trying to con people? This is the worst time for racism, and it’s not a good time to be sad about a dream trip that didn’t work out. There are kids to protect, and the humans played by this amazing group find their own ways to deal with new realities as they leave their old worlds behind.
The Cast
- Myha’la Herrold as Ruth Washington
- Julia Roberts as Amanda
- Kevin Bacon as Danny
- Ethan Hawke as Clay
- Mahershala Ali as George ‘G.H’ Washington
- Farrah Mackenzie as Rosie
- Vanessa Aspillaga as Salvadora
- Charlie Evans as Archie
- Josh Drennen as Crow
- Heather Lee as Female Lifeguard
- Stephanie Groves as Beachgoer
Release Date
Leave The World Behind will release on December 8, 2023.
Trailer
Leave the World Behind doesn’t have a trailer yet, and it’s possible that we won’t get one until the movie comes out. But in January, Netflix posted a “sizzle reel” that showed some of the biggest movies coming out in 2023, including “Leave the World Behind,” “Extraction 2,” “Rebel Moon,” “The Killer,” and “A Family Affair.”
Amanda, played by Julia Roberts, says, “Something is happening, and I don’t trust them,” in the short clip of Leave The World Behind shown in Netflix’s 2023 sizzle reel. Amanda doesn’t trust the black American couple G.H. and Ruth Washington. They show up at Amanda and Clay’s Airbnb apartment without warning and say they are the real owners. It’s the worst time to have trouble trusting people and discover that you’re racist because something is happening. A new graphic shows information about a cyberattack on the whole country and power blackouts in big cities on the east coast. Sam Esmail, who directed the first seasons of Mr. Robot and Homecoming, makes a strange scene in which Amanda, played by Julia Roberts, stands in front of a long line of broken Teslas. Whatever Ali G.H. sees from his car makes him look scared. In the first picture that Netflix showed, both couples had the same look of fear as if something terrible was happening off-screen that they would have to face together.
Director
People should be excited to watch this Netflix movie about the end of the world in December because of the big names involved. For example, Sam Esmail wrote the story and directed the movie. Rumaan Alam, who wrote the book, is also the show’s chief producer. The show will be made by Esmail, Roberts, Chad Hamilton, Lisa Gillan, and Marisa Yeres Gill. This is a big win for Netflix, which won after a fierce bidding war in which Apple, MGM, and a lot of other companies and streaming services were also interested. This was before the book came out and became a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award. The book was one of Barack Obama’s summer favorites, and NPR, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The LA Times, and many more named it one of the best books of 2020.
