Leave the World Behind, a film by Sam Esmail

#137: Everything I want in an adaptation

What a fascinating adaptation this was! While I didn’t love either thing on its own, I’m excited to talk about it as an adaptation.

First, I need to beat a dead horse: Don’t watch the trailer. For readers and non-readers alike, the trailer gives away every cool and surprising set piece in the film. If you watch the trailer, you’ll know more about what happens in the movie than if you’ve read the book!

With that out of the way, here are the bare bones of the story: A family renting a remote vacation home receives a knock at the door late at night from a couple claiming to be the owners of the home. The couple has come from the city, which has experienced a blackout with an unknown cause. The two families are faced with innumerable unknowns as their access to information is cut off by failing technology.

As a person who loves adaptations, complete faithfulness to the source material is not what I’m looking for. If I read the book first, I still hope for the film to provide suspense, surprises, and a fresh take. I want the storyteller to use the film medium to say and do things that justify the films existence.

Writer/Director Sam Esmail (Homecoming, Mr. Robot) does that. While hitting all the essential story beats from the book, there are enough changes that a book reader will be pleasantly surprised and entertained. I certainly was.

To discuss certain changes in more detail, I have to talk spoilers. Please don’t read on if you have any interest in the movie.

Thrills

The five scenes not in the book that thrill and surprise are the crashing ship, crashing plane, flyer-depositing drone, crashing Teslas, and standoff with Danny. Each set piece starts quietly and slowly builds tension.

These scenes do more than just thrill. The crashing ship and planes serve the narrative by giving certain characters more information than others. This imbalance of information creates more tension.

The drone scene is a stretch mostly because the flyer-to-human ratio is way off. Such a waste to dump that many flyers in the middle of nowhere! But I like the theory the characters come up with that the flyers introduce misinformation on a large scale that sows widespread distrust with the ultimate goal of societal self-destruction. We can assume the imbalance of information among our four main characters is what is happening across the country.

The standoff with Danny was my least favorite scene but gave us the best line: “I’m a useless man!” Clay says it in the book too, but in a less desperate way.

Myha’la as Ruth

I thought this change was genius. In the book, GH shows up with his wife Ruth. They are an older couple than Amanda and Clay and that generational gap is explored to a degree. In the movie, Ruth is GH’s daughter played by the formidable Myha’la. The generational gap between her and Amanda (played by Julia Roberts) creates juicy tension and awkwardness and adds another layer to the situation.

That ending!

How about that ending!? From what I’ve seen in the online discourse, it is controversial, but I loved it. On the surface, it’s subversive for me as a book reader, promotes physical media, and is a reminder to download. On another level, it cuts to black with our main characters separated from each other, yet we hear the familiar “I’ll be there for you!” It leaves you with many unknowns and only one certainty: Rose will find out what happens to Ross and Rachel. The lowest of stakes up against the highest of stakes.

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Thanks for reading!
Kyle