[imagesource:netflix]

Netflix is ending the year on a strong note.

The streamer has had original hits scattered through 2023 from The Strays to We Cloned Tyrone, and there are still other anticipated hits to come later this month, like Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget and Maestro.

But a lot of people are saying that Netflix’s best movie for the year is director Sam Esmail’s sharp, hugely enjoyable apocalyptic thriller starring Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, and Ethan Hawke.

Leave The World Behind is a dramatisation of Rumaan Alam’s acclaimed novel and executively produced by the Obamas – the ultimate name drop. The ex-US President apparently gave notes on how a real apocalypse might feel, which is spooky, to say the least.

While Esmail has altered certain elements of the book, the setup remains the same. The apocalyptic film chronicles two families as they’re cut off from the outside world in the wake of a potential societal collapse. While vacationing on Long Island at a relatively isolated home, Amanda (Roberts) and her husband Clay (Hawke) answer a knock at the door in the middle of the night. Bringing news of a blackout, the owner of the home, G.H. (Ali), and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la Herrold) return with a request to stay at the house during the uncertainty of the developing situation. But what is really going on, and who can anybody trust?

You might have seen it pop up already, and if you’ve seen Homecoming or Mr Robot, you’ll know exactly what you’re in for, per Digital Spy:

You’ll get familiar themes from Esmail’s work, such as the dangers of technology (or rather, the people using it), and also probably not all the answers to all the mysteries that Esmail poses. It’s also delivered with Esmail’s distinctive offbeat style, including unusual framing choices and an ominous score that acts sometimes as its own jump scare.

Too many of Netflix’s blockbusters are identical copies of one another, but Leave the World Behind has actual character, with excellent actors covering weighty themes like unconscious bias, wealth inequality and more.

The movie, like the novel it’s based on, leaves a lot of questions unanswered and a lot of weird things unexplained, but for those willing to go along with it, Leave the World Behind is said to be “a gripping, unique and superbly performed thriller”.

The Guardian awarded the film four stars, lauding it as “sharp-witted, bracingly bleak and immensely enjoyable”.

Exec produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, Leave the World Behind is a cracking film – a provocative, superbly acted action drama that combines big-hitting ambition and spectacle with just enough humour to temper the whole end-of-civilisation meltdown scenario.

That’s your evening plans sorted, right?

[source:digitalspy]