If you woke up tomorrow and your phone was a brick, would you know how to get home? Honestly, most of us wouldn’t. That’s the uncomfortable nerve that the 2023 movie with Ethan Hawke and Julia Roberts, Leave the World Behind, decided to jump up and down on. It wasn't just another disaster flick where a hero in a tank top saves the day. It was weirder. Meaner. And way more concerned with how much we actually hate our neighbors when the Wi-Fi dies.
I remember watching this on Netflix when it first dropped in December 2023. The buzz was everywhere, mostly because it felt less like a movie and more like a checklist of modern anxieties. You've got Sam Esmail directing—the guy who did Mr. Robot—so you already know the camera is going to be doing some dizzying, upside-down bird’s-eye view stuff that makes you feel slightly nauseous. But the real draw? Seeing Julia Roberts play someone who is, quite frankly, a total jerk.
Why Leave the World Behind Still Lingers in Our Brains
The movie with Ethan Hawke and Julia Roberts isn't a traditional "end of the world" story. There are no zombies. No aliens. Just a slow, grinding realization that the systems we trust—GPS, news alerts, even self-driving Teslas—are incredibly fragile. Roberts plays Amanda Sandford, an advertising executive who famously says, "I f***ing hate people," within the first five minutes. She books a luxury rental in Long Island to get away from the "terrible" people of New York City, dragging her husband Clay (Hawke) and their two kids along.
Then the weirdness starts. A massive oil tanker literally runs aground on the beach where they’re sunbathing. The TV stops working. And then, in the middle of the night, there’s a knock at the door. It's Mahershala Ali and Myha’la. They claim to own the house. They say there's a blackout in the city.
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The tension here isn't just about a cyberattack. It’s about the fact that Amanda doesn't believe these two Black people could possibly own this expensive home. It’s uncomfortable to watch. It’s meant to be. The movie spends more time on these microaggressions than it does on the actual explosions happening in the distance.
The Breakdown of the Modern Dad
Ethan Hawke’s role is fascinating because he plays a "cool" professor who is basically useless in a crisis. He can’t navigate without a phone. He gets lost on a backroad and encounters a woman pleading for help in Spanish, and what does he do? He drives away. He’s terrified.
It’s a brutal look at the "educated" class. We think we’re smart because we read The Atlantic, but when the satellites go dark, we’re just as lost as anyone else. Hawke plays this with a sort of hangdog desperation that feels very real. He isn't the guy who’s going to build a fire; he’s the guy who’s going to wait for someone else to tell him it’s okay.
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The Details You Might Have Missed
People spent weeks dissecting the symbolism in this film. If you look closely, the names and numbers aren't random.
- The Ship: The tanker that crashes is named "White Lion." That was the name of the first ship to bring enslaved Africans to Virginia in 1619.
- The Radio: When Clay is driving, the radio flashes "1619" briefly.
- The Deer: Hundreds of deer start staring at the house. It’s creepy as hell. Some people thought it was a "nature is healing" thing, but in the context of the movie, it’s more like nature realized the humans are finally vulnerable.
The ending—which I won’t totally spoil if you haven’t seen it—involves a character finding a bunker and just wanting to watch the final episode of Friends. It’s a hilarious and depressing commentary on how we use entertainment to ignore the fact that the world is literally on fire outside our window.
Is This Movie Realistic?
The scary part is that the "three-stage attack" described in the film—isolation, synchronized chaos, and then civil war—is a real-world concept. Experts have pointed out that while a mass "car crash of Teslas" like the one in the movie might be a bit of a stretch, a massive cyberattack on our power grid and communication networks isn't science fiction. It’s a genuine national security concern.
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The film was actually produced by Higher Ground, the production company started by Barack and Michelle Obama. Apparently, the former President sent notes on the script to make the "collapse" feel more grounded in reality. That alone is enough to make you want to go out and buy a hand-crank radio and some extra canned beans.
How to Prepare for Your Own "Off-Grid" Moment
Watching a movie with Ethan Hawke and Julia Roberts shouldn't just be for the thrills. It’s a decent wake-up call. You don't need to be a full-blown "prepper" like Kevin Bacon’s character in the movie, but having a basic plan isn't a bad idea.
- Get a Paper Map: Seriously. Buy a physical road atlas of your state. If the GPS goes down, you’ll realize how much you’ve forgotten about north, south, east, and west.
- Hard Copies of Entertainment: If the internet dies, your streaming services die with it. Having a few DVDs or physical books is the difference between staying sane and staring at a wall for three days.
- Basic Survival Knowledge: Know where your local water source is and how to shut off the gas in your house.
The most important takeaway from the film isn't about the technology, though. It’s about the people. In the movie, the characters only start to survive when they stop being suspicious of each other and start cooperating. The "apocalypse" in the film is fueled by the fact that nobody trusts anyone. If we want to avoid the mess the Sandfords ended up in, we probably need to start talking to our neighbors while the lights are still on.
Next time you're scrolling through Netflix, give this one another look. It’s less of a movie and more of a mirror. Just don't be surprised if you find yourself checking your cell service bars every ten minutes for an hour after it ends.