Leave The World Behind Ending Explained

The Leave the World Behind ending sees New York City getting bombed, while Rose finds the Thorne’s bunker so she can watch Friends and the two families can find shelter there. Leave the World Behind is a Netflix movie written and directed by Sam Esmail based on a novel by Rumaan Alam. Leave the World Behind is a part of Netflix’s multi-picture producing deal with Barack and Michelle Obama and features performances from Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, Kevin Bacon, and more.

Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) books a stay at a vacation home, but their trip barely begun when a massive cyber attack takes out the internet and communications networks. The homeowner GH (George) Scott (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la) return home unexpectedly and the two families struggle to trust each other. Things get worse and worse until Clay Sandford (Ethan Hawke) and George go to his neighbor Danny (Kevin Bacon) for medical assistance, and he suggests they find the Thornes’ bunker, which Rose Sandford (Farrah Mackenzie) already found so she could watch the Friends finale.

Leave the World Behind’s Five Part Structure Explained

GH Explains It All To Clay

Leave the World Behind is divided into five sections, each of which is denoted with a title screen. They are Part I: The House, Part II: The Curve, Part III: The Noise, Part IV: The Flood, and Part V: The End. The titles make sense because they all refer to the events that happen within that section, but the five-part structure has a little more meaning to the plot of the movie as well. The first two parts are sort of a prelude, but parts III, IV, and V each coincide with one of the stages of the plot GH describes to Clay at the end of Leave the World Behind while they’re sitting in GH’s car outside Danny’s house.

The plan outline includes stage 1: isolation, designed to “make the target deaf and dumb,” which clearly coincides with “the noise” from Part III. Stage 2 is synchronized chaos, which is characterized by synchronized attacks and misinformation. This corresponds to “the flood” subtitle from Part IV since that’s when they’re flooded with misinformation such as the red cards. Finally, stage 3: coup d’état, coincides with Part V: The Last One. Given the movie’s timeline and plot, Leave the World Behind could have worked with just three parts, but Part I and Part II make a lot of sense as precursors to GH’s three phases.

Why Were the Animals Acting So Weird?

The Flamingos Are LIkely There Due To Some Kind Of Disaster

After the Sandfords see the White Lion oil tanker wash ashore, they return to the vacation home where Amanda and Clay see a herd of deer in the backyard. Initially, Clay says seeing deer is a good omen according to Mesoamerican mythology, but it’s clearly a sign of the bad things to come. The deer aren’t the only animals to appear on the property as flamingos land in the pool one night, and flocks of birds are seen flying throughout the movie. Towards the end, the deer even surround Ruth and Amanda in an uncharacteristically threatening manner. The strange animal behavior isn’t completely explained, but there are plenty of clues presented.

When Clay takes the car to go into town, he gets out to search for cell phone signal and the car radio briefly picks up a broadcast warning “we’re now getting reports that the fallout from the ongoing cyber attack has led to a catastrophic environmental disaster in the south, impacting animal migration patterns.” The exact nature of the attack isn’t clear, but the oil tanker crashing into the beach is a good clue of what’s going on in other areas of the country. Considering the closest place the flamingos could be from is Florida, oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico and a handful of other catastrophes could push animals north to New York.

How Did Danny Know About the Attack Before It Happened?

There’s A Good Chance He Was Simply Paranoid

When Amanda first goes into town, she sees Danny (Kevin Bacon) loading up his truck with supplies, but it’s not until later she realizes he is preparing for the attack ahead of time. While George had his suspicions because of market behaviors and saw it coming because of “the curve,” in addition to weird hints dropped by his friends in high places, Danny didn’t have the same resources. Even so, he knew something was coming and made sure his home was prepared with all the supplies he’d need.

Danny says the evidence that something was going to go down was apparent because of things he saw in the newspaper, such as Russia suddenly recalling all of its diplomats, but he also confidently says it was either the Koreans or the Chineses, seemingly stereotyping based on a combination of xenophobia and information from his friend in San Diego about red pamphlets with asian looking writing on it. On one hand, Danny deserves credit for being prepared for the situation, but on the other, he could also be a paranoid prepper who was already anticipating a catastrophic event.

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8 Things That Happen After Leave The World Behind’s Ending That The Movie Doesn’t Tell You

Netflix’s hit movie Leave the World Behind, which was based on Rumaan Alam’s best-selling novel, cuts out several future details from the book.

Leave The World Behind Ending & True Meaning Explained

The character arcs experienced by the Sandfords and the Scotts, particularly Amanda and Ruth, provide the backbone of Leave the World Behind‘s commentary on humanity. After bickering for most of the movie, they come to an agreement in their views about the human condition after Amanda says “we know we’re living a lie. An agreed-upon mass delusion to help us ignore and keep ignoring how awful we really are.” The Sandfords and the Scotts don’t trust each other and don’t want to stay in the same house until they realize they have to settle their differences because they need to cooperate to survive.

Rose’s obsession with Friends serves as a thematic backbone and meta-commentary to the rest of the movie. Clay tells Amanda about how his former student’s book is an “exploration of how media serves as both an escape and a reflection” just like how Leave the World Behind is a entertaining thriller about the collapse of society, but also reveals truths about humanity through its characters. While the world is falling apart, Rose just wants to see the Friends finale to see how it all ends. Meanwhile, Ruth says Friends was “nostalgic for a time that never existed.”

When Rose finally had enough of the chaos going on at the end of Leave the World Behind, she ran away and broke into the Thornes house to eat comfort food. She also finds their bunker, which was somehow left unlocked, and a massive DVD collection including Friends. As everyone else is discovering New York City is being bombed, she’s starting the finale, “The Last One,” which inspired the Part V title, right before the credits. The audience may also watch Leave the World Behind as a sort of escapism while parts of the world burn, but, but it can serve as both an escape and a reflection, depending on how you engage with it.

The Leave The World Behind Ending Is Different In The Book

The Film Made Some Questionable Changes That Were Met With A Mixed Reaction

While there were several changes from the page to the screen, including some character relationships being different, the most significant likely comes at the end. In both cases, Rose finds a home that intrigues her but in the film, she simply turns on the Friends finale and things cut to black. In the novel, Rose is more of a help to her family, gathering supplies and presumably bringing them back so they can all survive. She also wasn’t obsessed with Friends as that was an addition for the movie.

In the eyes of many, that would’ve been a better way to conclude the film as it at least lets viewers know that there’s some hope. Even if simply watching the Friends finale plays into one of the themes of the film, it left audiences unsatisfied. Director Sam Esmail even went to address this while talking with THR, saying,

“We knew going into this that the ending was going to be polarizing, but we did not want to pull punches on it. I think in a traditional disaster film, a genre that I’m a huge fan of, so no knock on disaster films — I mean, Day after Tomorrow is one of my favorite movies — but the expectation is at the end of these films, your cast of characters overcomes the disaster and the world reverts back to some sane semblance of normalcy. I knew that I wasn’t going to do that.”

“As a film lover, I’m excited when I leave a movie wanting to spend hours talking about it. And when you end a film with sort of a pat answer, where the heroes do overcome something, those tend to be the movies where they kind of come and go. So we knew making this film that we wanted to go in this provocative way, and we assumed the risk that it would divide people — and hopefully in a good way, because that provokes conversation.”

Although it is an ending that has been discussed many times over by Netflix subscribers, which is what Esmail desired, the reception hasn’t been stellar. Critics seemed fine with it as the film sits at 74% on Rotten Tomatoes but the score from the audience is a paltry 35%. It shows that viewers weren’t all that pleased with Leave the World Behind and the polarizing ending left a sour taste in the mouths of many.

What Author Rumaan Alam Has Said About The Leave The World Behind Ending

The Writer Of The Original Novel Approves Of The Ending To The Movie

Writer-direcot Sam Esmail’s adaptation of Leave the World Behind made some considerable changes to the ending of the book, and not all of them were received positively by fans of the source material. However, among the supporters of Esmail’s changes is a name that readers who didn’t care for the movie may find surprising – author Rumaan Alam, the writer of the Leave the World Behind novel. Unlike many fans of his 2020 book, Rumaan Alam enthusiastically approved of the changes made to the ending of Leave the World Behind when adapting it for the screen.

Speaking to Variety, Rumaan Alam (who was also an executive producer for the Netflix movie) was vocal about his support of Sam Esmail’s alterations. A sizeable portion of his readership may have preferred a more direct adaptation of the story and its conclusion, but the author himself clearly doesn’t share this opinion. When asked his views on the differences between the ending of Leave the World Behind in the novel and movie, he made it clear just how much he enjoyed Sam Esmail’s changes:

“To end with the particular jolt of humor that [Sam Esmail] does is so satisfying and so rewarding. It’s sort of self-reflective because he’s a filmmaker. He’s also worked in television, and he’s sort of asserting something about the power of that medium, and its hold over this one character. I say it’s funny, but I don’t think it’s a joke. I don’t think it’s a joke on Rose. I don’t think it’s a joke on the audience. I don’t think it’s a joke on “Friends.” It’s a reminder that art is kind of a salve. The theatrical experience of watching this movie is so powerful because I’ve had the chance to see audiences respond to the ending three times now, and nobody really knows what to make of it. They’re like, is this funny? Is this scary? Is it really over? And I love that so much.”

While many didn’t respond well to the emotionally hazy final moments of Leave the World Behind, especially compared to the book, it’s clear the the creator of the story himself wasn’t opposed to the new direction at all. It’s clear that, for Alam, the different mediums require a different approach when it comes to storytelling. He also doesn’t share the opinion of many critics and viewers that the ending of Leave the World Behind is too bleak. Alam’s interpretation is much more hopeful, though he also admits he doesn’t truly know what’s in store for the characters after the ending of the movie:

In the film, they set that timer, and so there’s a literal ticking clock, and we hear the timer alarm go off. That’s the last moment we’re with Ruth and Amanda. And the last thing that G.H. has said is we’ve got to go to that bunker. You as a viewer may say, “Oh, they’re not going to make it.” But I have this vision of G.H. as so competent, and I feel like he’s solved every problem. But I don’t know what’s going to happen to Archie. The truth is that I don’t know. This is something I’ve heard Sam say a lot, that he also doesn’t know. But this is open enough that it becomes something that is possessed by its audience. I’m not withholding a definitive answer because I’m not in possession of that.

How Director Sam Esmail Explains The Ending Of Leave The World Behind

The Creative Mind Behind The On-Screen Adaptation Has Shared Many Thoughts On The Climax

Given how ambiguous (and, in some ways, polarizing) the ending of Leave the World Behind was, it’s no surprise at all that director Sam Esmail has been asked about the climax of the 2023 Netflix movie in multiple interviews. In the months following the release of Leave the World Behind, Esmail spoke to numerous outlets and explained just as many different aspects of the final moments of the film. For example, speaking to Collider, the director of Leave the World Behind revealed why the sitcom Friends played such a prominent part in the final scene (a query many fans of Rumaan Alam’s novel had, given that this wasn’t present in the ending of the book):

“[Choosing which sitcom to focus on at the end of Leave the World Behind] was a big conversation that we had for a long time, and you run through all the sitcoms that are these classics that could potentially work but none of them really had that theme song that was so iconic. And, I have to stress this, the lyrics of that song were so perfect for how the film ends. I honestly don’t know what I would have done. There was a point where, after we ran through other options, I think I looked at the team and I said, “I don’t think we can afford to lose Friends.” There’s no show that fits that moment more perfectly than that show, so we had to use all our powers to make sure that we got the rights, and we luckily did.”

Other interviews probed Sam Esmail for clarity on his adaptation of Leave the World Behind more broadly, rather than focusing on specific elements. For example, speaking to Vulture, Esmail was asked why he chose to offer (slightly) more clarity at the end of the movie version of Leave the World Behind than Alam did in his novel:

“In a literary medium, you can be more abstract, because when you’re reading something, the imagination is left up to you. It’s more expected that it’s going to be open to interpretation. Whereas in a film, audiences need a little bit more hand-holding when it comes to some answers. Now, at the same time, I didn’t want to pull punches and I wanted to embrace the tone of the ending of the book — which is a question mark. It is meant to provoke conversation; it is not meant to tie everything up. I don’t think the film does that. But I wanted to give a little more, because I do think in the cinematic medium, you can go too far with abstraction.”

However, Esmail hasn’t only had to explain certain aspects of the Leave the World Behind ending or discuss his creative decisions. He’s also had to defend many of the changes he made too – which shows just how polarizing the climax of the hit Netflix movie truly was. The writer-director of Leave the World Behind has stood firm though, and defended his approach to adapting Rumaan Alam’s novel incredibly well (via The Independent).

[I’m] not a fan of people necessarily adapting something from another medium in this one-to-one ratio. It shouldn’t work! It’s so great in the medium for a reason,” he explained, before going on to give an in-depth justification for why his changes were necessary:

“When you think about it in terms of — especially if you go into a cinematic medium — you have to recontextualise it. You have to figure out a different way to mine the same character, the interior lives of these characters, or the visual language of the book. You have to find a way to reconstruct it. If you do this one-to-one thing, I think nine times out of 10 you’re gonna fail.”

How The Leave The World Behind Ending Was Received

The Ending Was Far Less Polarizing For Viewers Who Hadn’t Read The Book

While Sam Esmail’s changes to the ending of Leave the World Behind were polarizing among fans of Rumaan Alam’s novel, critics unfamiliar with the source material generally responded positively to the movie and its final moments. Leave the World Behind currently sits with a 74% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes, showing that while praise was far from universal, Esmail’s adaptation at least managed to win over the majority of reviewers. However, it’s also important to note that the Netflix movie fared considerably worse when it comes to general audiences, as the 36% Popcornmeter rating shows.

There were many critics who singled out the Leave the World Behind ending as a core strength of the movie. For example, in his review for The Monthly Film Festival, critic Julian Leu gave the conclusion of Leave the World Behind some of the highest compliments in his entire analysis:

“It’s great to witness how these dynamics [between the characters in Leave the World Behind] evolve, and how the characters change, while in varying amounts still adhering to their moral principles of society, that have been deeply embedded within them. Less prone to these coping mechanisms are the children, a teenage boy and a pre-teenage girl whose only goal seems to be watching the final episode of Friends. Yes, it’s as humane as this – not saving the world, not escapism, but sheer hedonism. And it’s quite ironic that a lot of people didn’t enjoy the ending, because I think the ending perfectly encapsulates the essence of the film, as well as the human obsession with linear storytelling and clear-cut endings.”

Other critics weren’t as openly complementary about the ending of Leave the World Behind, but still didn’t go as far as dismissing it outright as some readers of Rumaan Alam’s novel have done. In her review for Paste Magazine, Brianna Zigler put forward a slightly more balanced opinion of the final moments of Sam Esmail’s movie, though still noted that the flaws as the story reached its conclusion didn’t negatively impact the viewing experience all that much:

“The themes of Leave the World Behind—and the place where everything ends up, which is funny and charming but a little unfinished—aren’t as tautly composed as the body encasing them. But considering ideas of “us against them” in times of crisis, and who exactly is “us,” and who is “them,” are worth considering in our current time. They could also be handled far worse when one thinks of the way “socially conscious” themes are often handled in, say, modern horror films.”

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A family’s getaway to a luxurious rental home takes an ominous turn when a cyberattack knocks out their devices, and two strangers appear at their door.

Director

Sam Esmail

Release Date

December 8, 2023

Runtime

141 Minutes