Hello and welcome to #DeluxEdition, our television, movie and literature review segment of Delux Designs (DE), LLC! We haven’t posted a review in a while for this segment but we are back with a couple new posts this week pertaining to some really great new movies and television series we have been binge watching for a while now.
Let’s get into today’s post below!
Photography provided by Netflix
So today’s review is on the new and popular movie on Netflix called Leave The World Behind. I actually found out about this new movie from catching brief clips of it on TikTok recently and had to check it out as soon as I could. There was major hype over it on all social media platforms and that hype did not disappoint at all. What I found out about it once researching a bit is that it is based on an actual book with the same title written by author Rumaan Alam. I have not had the opportunity to read the book yet but of course I intend to do so in the future to compare the film with the literature it’s based on, so stay tuned for that review to come as well.
Photography provided by Bloomsbury
Let’s check out the cast and a full overview of the plot of this movie below. Warning though, if you have not watched this movie and want to soon without us spoiling it for you, go ahead and save this post to read later once you’ve checked it out for yourself and then come back to read. There are major spoilers in this post, just a fair warning to those who haven’t watched it yet.
Amanda Sandford
Photography provided by Netflix
Award winning actress Julia Roberts plays the mom of this tight knit family in which this movie is featured around. Here name is Amanda Sandford and her and her two kids along with her husband decide to take a vacation to the beach area and country outskirts of New York City, I want to say this is centered around Long Island of New York based on the scenery shown. They are originally living in the city limits of New York City but found a really nice home in the countryside of the city in which they rent out to take some time away from the busy city life. They never truly said where Amanda worked unless I missed that part of the movie, but she seems to be very head strong. If caught where she was working during the movie, drop a comment in the comment section for me and I can update this part. She seems to be very defensive yet protective of her family upfront as she should be. Really blunt and direct, but not in say a disrespectful manner.
G. H. Scott
Photography provided by Men’s Health
Award winning actor Mahershala Ali is casted as G. H. Scott, the actual owner of the house that Amanda and her family are renting for their vacation. He mentioned clients that he has in which you can conclude that he is apart of politics in some way. Maybe a campaign manager for political candidates of some sort, or even a financial advisor for some powerful people maybe. I had a sense while watching that he deals with confidential information due to his caution of providing full truth throughout the movie, and of course money is always included in things that are confidential. He has a family of his own, one daughter and a wife and seems to be highly intelligent. You can tell, however, that he has been through some tense racial problems and instances because he moves silently and cautiously when he encounters the Sandford family.
Clay Sandford
Photography provided by Netflix
Another award winning actor by the name of Ethan Hawke plays the role of Amanda’s husband and father of their two children, Clay Sandford. He seems to be more easygoing and way more trusting of others than his wife is during the duration of events to come for their family during their vacation. Clay and Amanda’s relationship is the definition of “opposites attract”. They’re completely opposite in their personalities. Again, I did not catch where Clay worked during the movie, but I would assume a position that’s more empathetic, like a nurse or a counselor maybe.
Ruth Scott
Photography provided by The Wrap
Actress Myha’la plays the daughter of G.H. Scott, Ruth Scott. Ruth seems to be a free spirit. She doesn’t really have a plan at all for her life, even stated it during a scene with Amanda, but want’s to do and be someone of importance. I would see her being an activist of some sort because she always brought up racial discrimination amongst African Americans and Caucasians a lot. This solidified my thoughts on her dad and why he was so cautious as mentioned previously. Her attitude throughout the entire movie was rude to say the least until she was literally cornered into facing reality. Her main concern, however, was the fate of her mother in which her nor her father could get in touch with throughout the duration of events during the movie.
Rose Sandford
Photography provided by Digital Spy
Actress Farrah Mackenzie plays the role of Amanda and Ethan’s daughter, Rose Sandford. Her character was the most interesting to me. Some of the things she spoke about during the movie really brought together the puzzle of the movie’s plot fully. She was easygoing but very aware of her surroundings as a whole. You can tell by her movements and the movements of animals around her that she has a very high vibrating energy that attracts things to herself. Her curiosity I believe is what saved her family in the end.
Archie Sandford
Photography provided by The Wrap
Archie Sandford is the son of Amanda and Clay and the brother of Rose. He’s played by actor Charlie Evans. Now Archie went through the most physically during the durations of events throughout the movie. He seemed to be more easygoing just like his sister but more occupied with technology and being able to connect with the world, specifically his friends from school. Towards the end of the movie he was the only one who would need immediate medical assistance due to the events that took place.
Danny
Photography provided by The Wrap
Award winning actor Kevin Bacon plays a local by the name of Danny. Danny was seen in the very beginning of the movie loading up “supplies” in which we will dive into towards the end of this post. But automatically he seemed nervous and what a normal person who deem as weird. Very quiet and keeps to himself mainly. We soon learn that Danny is not as crazy as he may seem. Danny has a connection to G.H. Scott as a contractor in the same area of his rental property.
Plot Spoilers
Ok so those are the main cast members of this movie mentioned above. Not going to lie, at first I thought this movie was going to be a bit boring, or hyped up more than necessary, but it began really interesting almost immediately.
Danny’s Dallas Cowboys Hat
Photography provided by Cinematic Outfits
The first thing I noticed was Danny’s National Football League Dallas Cowboys Hat. I found that really interesting that the NFL’s Cowboys football team specifically was highlighted in this film. I’m wondering about the connection here in relation to the events that took place throughout the movie. Is there a message being given surrounding “America’s Team”? As a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan myself personally, I know the actor Kevin Bacon is also a Philadelphia Eagles fan himself as he is originally from Philly, so this was really interesting to me. During Danny’s first scene in the movie he is seen loading up supplies as though he is really preparing for something big, while everyone around him is just going about their day without a care in the world. It’s like he knew something was coming before everyone else knew something was coming. Amanda and her family notice Danny at the store but of course they don’t know each other personally so they don’t speak or anything but eye contact is made.
Oil Tanker Ship Wash Up
Photography provided by The Mary Sue
From the Farm Supply store, Amanda and her family head to the local beach area to relax and have some fun. As they are sitting on the beach, a huge oil tanker ship literally floats onto the beach right in front of them. There wasn’t any type of violence between the tanker and the beachgoers, and it didn’t appear to be anyone on the ship once it came on land barely missing the beach goers who were there as well on vacation right along with the Sandford family. There were no alerts of any kind, just a huge ship that rolled onto the beach. Now, what I noticed was the name of the ship itself, White Lion. While watching the movie that name itself caught my attention immediately from previous history classes in K-12 and college during my past. In the past of the United States and it’s development, The White Lion was the name of a English ship that was operating under the Dutch during that time period which actually brought over one of the first Africans to the English colony of Virginia in 1619. This was just a year before the arrival of the Mayflower ship that was located in New England. How the White Lion came on shore was almost how I would envision a slave ship coming onshore back in the day but without people aboard so I questioned whether this was a symbol of things to come during the movie? Once the ship came ashore, of course the Sandford family leaves the beach and goes back to their rental home, soon after night falls and the events start to unravel. Another question I had was why none of the beachgoers tried to call any type of authorities concerning the tanker ship washing ashore. Everyone just stood around and looked at it, but it didn’t seem like a realistic response from Americans that you would typically see in reality. We are a technology driven world right now, so why wasn’t anyone recording this ship coming ashore nor on the phone to speak with anyone concerning it? Why weren’t there any type of law enforcement present once it did wash ashore? No helicopters or anything. It was too silent upon it’s arrival.
Mass Outages
First thing to happen after the ship incident is a mass outage of phones, GPS devices, radios, and the main outage of the internet as a whole. As you all may know, our world today is centered around having internet access to almost every little thing we do technology wise so you can only imagine what would happen if the internet goes out or down nationwide. Pure chaos and that’s exactly what happened during this movie. The outages caused chaos and panic in the major city of New York which forced G.H. Scott and Ruth Scott to travel to their rental property to stay — the same property that the Sandford’s are currently vacationing at. It was weird that they came to the property in the middle of the night without full valid reasoning but a smart move on their part. Amanda was hesitant about letting them stay, as any mother and wife would and should be, but Clay being the easygoing person he is agreed that they could stay. There was enough room for them all but there was tension from that point forward between Amanda and Ruth. Amanda wants to protect her family and enjoy her vacation in peace away from anyone else, just her family. Ruth wants to know where her mom is as she was supposed to be flying in from Italy to Ohio and then back home to New York but with the outages they have no way of getting into contact with her at all. With everything happening already, I automatically thought ok her mom is gone and there is a huge tragedy happening in the city that they weren’t telling the Sandford’s about. They showed up in the middle of the night in a Bentley fully dressed in formal attire, almost like they had to take off running away from something crazy immediately.
Photography provided by IGN
While everyone was sleeping in the house we see what is truly going on from a report trying to come through on the television stating that there was currently a mass Cyberattack going on with every major city in the United States and worldwide. That would explain the ship floating up out of the blue on the beach. Maybe it was idle or something in the sea and when the attack happened it was driven remotely or out of control to the beach possibly? That would explain all of the outages with all technology as well, but it doesn’t explain the next events to happen.
Animal Migration Patterns
Photography provided by The Tab
Next incident I noticed was Rose Sandford’s scene next where she’s standing in the backyard of the rental property with a t-shirt on that says NASA. Again this made me wonder what were the ties of NASA to the incidents taking place the same way I questioned the Cowboys hat as well. Was this an attack on the world’s satellites or something dealing with space? I really think that was tied in with the fact that this family was currently experiencing a Cyberattack in which would attack satellites in space but was this a message that NASA was involved?
From that scene Rose ends up face to face with a couple deer in the woods. At first all she sees is two which is common and normal, I’ve encountered one or two deer in person in my lifetime of just roaming the yard before. But then more and more show up which makes her uncomfortable and is highly uncommon and not normal. Deer are animals of peace, they don’t typically provoke into dangerous behaviors with humans, but the way these deer were looking at Rose it said otherwise. To me it seemed they were either trying to get away from something, almost like they were migrating or they were possessed in some way and getting ready to attack.
The animals themselves began acting strange from that point forward. The birds were migrating literally too early in the year. It wasn’t winter season but all of them were grouped together flying South. Crazy enough a flock of flamingos ended up flying and landing in their rental property’s pool which is not normal. We soon learn from another alert on the television randomly trying to come through that there was an environmental disaster happening in the South which was causing a negative affect on the migration patterns of all animals. So there were flocks of animals moving around rapidly from one place to another amongst these humans in an aggressive manner. To me this doesn’t align with a Cyberattack. Cyber is more of technology, not an environmental factor with nature and animals so it made me think that maybe more than one thing was happening all at the same time and the Sandford family had not realized it yet. This goes back to my questioning on whether NASA was involved as well. Was there some sort of solar storm that happened that changed the climate so much the migration patterns changed as well? Just a lot of questions here to where was the tie between the Cyberattacks and the Environmental Disaster that was going on at the same time. After this things got really interesting to me. I was already questioning why there weren’t anyone else around. No neighbors walking dogs or anything like that. No police officials doing routine check ups under the circumstances. Just nobody, but my questions soon were answered in the next scenes.
Clay’s Drive
Clay decided to ride out to see if there were any other people around to explain what was going on and found that there was literally no one, not even another car driving by, but even he began to act strange. I noticed he was driving back and forth, almost in a circle with no destination. It was like he was confused at no fault of his own and didn’t fully realize it yet. His GPS still wasn’t working as well to help him. Plus all of the street signs were gone which was super weird to me. Who took the time to take all the street signs? Almost like they were intentionally removed to cause chaos of some sort. After a while of riding he ended up finally seeing someone, but of course she scared him away. She was a hispanic lady who only spoke in Spanish in which she told him she needed help because she had seen a plane go down but hadn’t seen any other people for miles. I still wonder if Clay really seen this lady or due to his confusion he may have began hallucinating. Either way it goes he did not help the lady and began to drive off. Once he got on down the road he noticed a huge drone flying above him releasing red cards . He quickly turned around to go back to the rental property and do you know that Hispanic lady was no where to be found on his way back down the road to the rental property. She wasn’t walking on the road where he originally seen her. Almost like she just disappeared. I almost don’t believe she was truly there but was of some figure in his mind. Now what was making him delusional I’m not sure but I would guess that whatever it was making him see things and people that weren’t there is the same thing that would make the animals act crazy and migrate un-naturally.
Planes Crashing
Photography provided by Film Obsessive
The next scene was very interesting, but eerily weird. G.H. Scott ended up venturing out just like Clay during the same time he left in his car, but he decided to try and visit a good neighbor right down the road from his rental property. Once he got there though he could tell something was very wrong. Firstly, all of the windows were broken which is weird. If this was a looting situation in light of the power and internet being out, maybe one window would be broken to get in but not all of them. The door was propped open as well as though someone just maybe left in a hurry and didn’t even bother to close it. Regardless, this led to G.H. Scott walking into the home anyways of course announcing he was there but no one responded. The inside of the home was a wreck, almost like a huge force of wind just shattered everything including all of the windows at the back of this million dollar home. Once he did reach the back of the home, there was a trail of debris leading from the home to the beach which was weird when I first watched this movie. What would cause that? I thought maybe people running with merchandise they’d stolen from the home but they wouldn’t run from the front to back, there would be a debris trail going in the opposite direction from the back to the front of the home and out the door, but it was much more than I thought. Once he reached the beach that was located directly behind the home, he realized that this was not debris from a looting situation but debris from a whole plane crash. He found plane seats, luggage from passengers on the plane, and the passengers from the plane including the pilot. This was the first time we see actual people other than the Scott’s and Sandford’s — minus the creepy lady walking along the road with Clay.
What’s interesting here is that towards the beginning of the mass outage he was trying to get into contact with his wife who was flying in from Paris into Ohio and then into New York but never could get a response back. It made me wonder was this her plane possibly that went down? After a short while, another plane appeared out of nowhere in the sky and crashed into that very same area narrowly missing him and the home he had just came from. This explained why there were so many broken windows, debris everywhere and even water inside of the home. Good thing about this visit is that he found a satellite phone which would typically be a great resource to have but quickly realized it wasn’t working either which led to a huge negative realization that their satellites in outer space were down as well — not good for anyone on Earth especially the United States.
Shed in the Woods
While Clay and G.H. Scott were on the hunt to find other people in the area that might be of some help, Clay’s children were exploring the woods behind the rental property after the appearance of a mass amount of deer in the previous scenes with Rose. Primarily Rose was fascinated more than Archie but he tagged along with her while trying to get his phone reception back. They ended up deep in the woods and stumbled across a shack in the middle of the woods which was weird to me but sort of made sense when it came to the deer. I come from a family of deer hunters so I automatically assumed that maybe deer hunters in the area use this shack for that but at the same time it would be way too close to these homes in the area to shoot any deer on a regular basis, so my thoughts went towards maybe a workshop of some kind for someone. The positioning was weird as well. Almost exactly at the center point between all of the houses surrounding the rental property. They roamed this area for a while and noticed another home not far from the shack on the opposite end. It was a very prestigious home, all red brick with black shutters. Almost like it was calling Rose to come and take a peak around, but they decided to head back to the rental property instead. On the way back out of the woods Archie is bit by some sort of bug. That one bite automatically turned his leg red. The deer had disappeared as well once they walked into the woods, almost like they were running from something, which led to the next set of weird events.
Broken Sound Barrier
Something broke the sound barrier. When the sound barrier is broken it creates a very, very high pitched noise that rings out in a human’s ears, and even breaks glass. This could cause your ear drums to burst if it lasts long enough. There are only a couple special planes that could do this, or even some powerful weapons, so I assumed ok this is a war type of situation but no bombs went off after this, and no gun fire sounded. It was just a high pitch noise that stopped everyone in their tracks wherever they were. This prompted Clay and G.H. Scott to return back to the rental property immediately, and the Sandford family decided to take a chance on themselves and leave to go back into the city of New York. However, they were stopped by Teslas, the cars. Literally the main highway and bridge that you would typically take back into the city of New York were blocked by brand new all white Tesla cars that were automatically driving to that location on their own and crashing into one another. As the camera spanned outward, you could see where these cars initially ran into regular gas operated cars and blocked them in too, blowing up a couple of them and catching some on fire. Again no people were found at all. None is distress, it didn’t show any in the regular gas operated cars, just no other people.
Photography provided by Esquire
What’s interesting here about the Teslas to me is that they were all the color white. I have seen some Teslas in other colors so I’m wondering why all of these were white? Were the other color Teslas not operating the same way. Did the sound barrier incident trigger this model of Tesla and this color of Tesla cars or something? This also sheds light on the dangers of the autopilot feature of Tesla. In today’s time this car brand has the ability to drive itself if given instructions to do so, but that leads me to think maybe they can do this on their own regardless if given instructions which is scary to me. Almost like a AI operated vehicle. Really something to think about with technology advances in today’s time.
Date Prediction
The next scary thing that happened in this movie is the date prediction that most probably missed if you’re not in tune with eclipse phases regularly. There was a scene from space where the American flag was shown on the moon but the flag was frozen solid. Now, I’ve never been to the moon before but I would guess that things would not be frozen solid like a cloth flag for example, if not we as in America would not have been able to put a man on the moon in previous time periods if it was that cold up there on the Moon in space. I would think there would be a slight breeze or something to where the flag would move slightly but in this scene this flag was frozen solid. So the scene was set as though you were standing on the Moon looking towards the Earth and the sun was rising behind the Earth. This is where the date and time period prediction comes in to play. When the sun is directly behind the Earth and not in between the Earth and the Moon, that is a Lunar Eclipse. There are only certain time periods of when Lunar Eclipses happen. Now for this upcoming new year of 2024, there are many Lunar Eclipses happening but the date that stuck out to me in September 18, 2024. The reason this one stuck out is the very next scene that shows like a engineering room with monitors that displayed an emergency message and the date of September 17. This date would make sense because G.H. Scott mentioned towards the beginning of the movie that this was the off season for the area of his rental property so not a lot of people were seen around that area during that time period. It’s almost like this was a early prediction of what is to come sort of.
Photography provided by CNET
Archie Health Emergency
Of so now we are over half way through the movie and they still have not fully figured out what exactly is going on, nor where everyone else literally is. But after running into the Tesla chaos, the Sandford family decided to go back to the rental property. This is where everyone became a bit closer and they all disclosed all of their encounters so far for that day with one another to try and strategize what to do next. But another string of tragic events began to unfold, specifically with Archie. His teeth began to fall out one by one. No pain at all just a slight touch and they were falling out. You mainly see this with high radiation exposure but his were the only ones falling out for some reason. This could also happen with Lyme Disease. Remember Archie was bitten in the woods earlier that day? Well they decided to put him into the car and visit Danny the contractor for some help, possibly for some medication to help him stop losing his teeth. This didn’t work well for them as Danny is paranoid (as he should be) and doesn’t truly have any help for him. He did have more information for them on what was going on and the agenda at play but that was about it. He tells them that he can’t help much but recommends that they visit the Thornes Home as he built a bunker for them years ago below their home that may have some resources they could use. Crazy part here is that Danny is the only other person they’ve run into that alive and normal like them. No one else the entire time. Really weird.
Rose is Missing
While Clay and G.H. Scott were busy with Danny and Archie, Rose decides to just leave. Which was crazy to me, but I think she was being pulled towards that brick house she kept wanting to visit the previous day. So of course Amanda and Ruth went out to look for her. They both ended up at that same shack in the middle of the woods but were cornered by that mass amount of deer. This time though, there was a huge buck deer that came through the crowd of deer basically showing his or her authority and instilling fear into Amanda and Ruth. Now they got rid of the deer by literally not showing fear and yelling at them. But I don’t think this is why the deer ran away. Shortly after the deer ran away, Ruth and Amanda witness some serious bombs going off and being dropped onto the city of New York. So much devastation was shown that there’s no way anyone that was there survived, it looked like one of those mushroom clouds when a nuclear bomb is dropped, very sad image and scene to say the least.
Photography provided by Decider
Crazy thing is while all of this is going on, Rose is actually at that brick house which we find out is the Thornes Home. So she found the bunker but it was a weird here how the movie ended. I thought she would’ve went back upstairs and got her family but she didn’t. She just sat down in front of the television and turned on the television show Friends instead and began watching it like there wasn’t anything going on outside of the home.
Photography provided by Digital Spy
Overall I give this film a 10 out of 10, but I didn’t like the ending. It left me with more questions than answers but at the same time I can’t complain about it too much. Films with endings like this keep watchers coming back time and time again trying to figure out what happened which is great overall. I’m hoping that there may be another part to it possibly later on that will come out but so far there hasn’t been any announcements of another part to come. If you’d like to watch this film it is available on Netflix for viewing. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for our next review for #DeluxEdition soon!
Have you watched Leave The World Behind before? If so, did you like or dislike it and why? Leave your thoughts and comments in the comment section below.
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