Leave The World Behind

[Tailfeather]

Aaaagh! I hate films with ambiguous endings. Please tell me what you think happens at the end so I can sleep tonight!

I thought it was a take on what a lot of us do - rely on a comforting distraction so we don’t notice what horrors are going on around us.

The screen said stuff about radioactivity, didn't it? And presumably the little girl wasn't going to share that with her parents as she just wanted to watch Friends. But I think it was all a bit fall out y. They didn't seem impacted adversely by radiation sickness so they would probably be ok.

Basically, the daughter is "The Last One" to survive as she found the bunker. The Friends episode she selected was a nod to this fact. It was a ridiculous ending tbf

I watched this tonight, too. Such a weird nothingy ending.

My guess is; Ruth found out what happened to Ross and Rachel, she had just finished the last episode of Friends when Amanda and Ruth found her. Ruth ran back to her dad's house and took them all back to the bunker to join Ruth and Amanda. After a couple of months living off the supplies, watching dvds, and checking outside now and again, Archie finds someone walking in the woods one day, whilst searching for deer. He discovers that it was only New York and the surrounding areas that were hit by the cyber attack, and the rest of America was unaffected. The satellites are all fine and they all lived happily ever after.

But electric cars get banned

I figured it was the start of WW3. The ready guy in it said about do what you have to do ... the girl chose the friends episode over her family

I think the others were also going to head to the house so they would find her there watching Friends before too long. The women had spotted the house and the bike marks leading to it and so were heading there. The men had been told about the house too and were also heading there.

Ahh I thought the same. Had me for an evening like whatttt.

For my sanity I have added a happy ending. The mum had already seen the house and said she thinks she’s there before getting distracted by nyc being bombed.

The guys were all on their way back so as long as they didn’t die on the way home then made it also.

When I look back no one was actually actively hunted IYSWIM. The crazy alien moment turned out to be a confusion technique of flyers. The cars did try to kill them but they didn’t seem to be anywhere else. Obviously the radiation/ sound thing was a problem but that seemed a slower death - so as long as it didn’t cause a crash.

Basically I think they made it.

They had a lot of food, she had a lot of movies, they still had internet. Everyone was happy in the bunker and god knows what happened outside.

Apparently in the book the daughter goes off and brings the families to the bunker. She's going to do that in the film, obviously after watching friends. Pills found in bunker to combat further radiation sickness

When she in in the kitchen and walking to the bunker you can here her mom shouting her name - she ignored it - so mom and the other girl would’ve found her.

The boys also know about the bunker and would’ve made their way there.

It’s a story of our time. The daughter is a symbol of us all. Watching our screens while the world falls apart.

We really enjoyed it and as we talked about it afterwards it made more and more sense. The ending was excellent really. The characters are all so alienated from one another - the boy taking photos of the girl to wank to, rather than just talking to her/getting to know her. The mother giving a withering look when the husband suggests sex. The daughter poignantly craving a group of fictional friends.

And the ending - she finds the bunker that might save them all (and they are all going to turn up there because the men were talking about it, and the women were headed over there). She hears her mum shout for her, but instead of going to find her, she turns away, finds the DVDs, and finally gets the episode she wanted to see.

We assumed the weird shot from the moon was telling us there was a huge solar flare incident that knocked out all technology.

It's helped me decide to keep my DVD collection.

We assumed the weird shot from the moon was telling us there was a huge solar flare incident that knocked out all technology.

nah the whole thing was certainly orchestrated by other humans in the method that GH described, we just don’t know by who. Probably by some crazy Americans though possibly Chinese/Iranians/Russians

the moon scene was just showing the the US flag still flying to contrast with the society being torn to shreds back on earth, I think. Literally the only place it was still legitimately flying.

although I thought the ending was a bit abrupt a happy ending of sorts was implied as they were clearly all on their way to the bunker.

They all end up in the bunker together, as the women were already there and the men on their way. It had everything they needed to survive.

Meanwhile outside, the US is under attack so they stay hunkered down until it’s safe to come out.

Hmm I must work on my positivity next year. I thought the girl had found the bunker, open and unlocked (for some reason) and gone in there and gone fuck all of you and closed the door behind her and locked them all out so she could watch Friends and eat all the snacks.

@StillWantingADog , I take the point about the American flag, but there was a weird red haze all around the earth. And with all the wildlife acting strangely, we wondered if there had been a polarity switch or something?

The stuff the trader mentioned could have been no more than conspiracy talk. Or perhaps the guy moving his money had forewarning of the solar flare? At any rate, I'd have quite liked him to be wrong, and that it came down to enormous, unstoppable cosmic forces that put the humans in their place.

But the flyers written in Korean were hard to explain. Enjoyed the bit with the drone that was a reference to the famous scene in North By Northwest.

We liked that the weedy father stepped up when it came to caring for his son, and literally stepped in the line of fire. A sort of hero's journey for him. And the arc where the racist mother had to connect with the girl, and of course forced to spend the apocalypse in a bunker with two black people!

@HelenFisksBrownSuit
it was just an eclipse of the earth from the moon

anyway I have done some reading up on theories this am and it appears one the main points is nobody really knows and the film is mostly about what people do and how they react when nobody knows wtf is happening

one major plot hole IMO is what happened to all the other people eg who were on the beach the previous day. Had they all just disappeared/died?

Yes, I agree that the focus is on the humans' reaction rather than an explanation of what happened. They seemed to be sleepwalking - as indeed most people are, in reality.

The way the couple forgot to tell the father/daughter about the ship frustrated me. Although I suppose it could be part of the point - they are not putting the pieces together or indeed treating a disturbing event with more than passing curiosity. It was like watching people seeing disturbing real-life events as nothing more than images flicked through on their phone screens: dreamy and disbelieving.

The point of the movie is not to understand why they are in that situation (enemies attack? Terrorism? Invasion?) but it just to analyse how human beings deal with that uncertainly and fear to die. It is all in that speech of GH to Clay in the car: how divided we will be in that event. Whether it’s because of the race issues we have or the wild conspiracy theorists who confidently believe their own crap, it is keeping us from trusting each other and caring for our neighbor’s well being. The girl is gen z, she is lonely and only knows how to live in the digital world. She loves Friends because she longs for that life, that type of connection that doesn’t seem to exist anymore, not even in her family.
That is the whole story. No need for a different ending.

I wonder. Did you think that Julia Robert’s character not wanting to let father / daughter to sleep in the house the first night had to do with racism? I am not sure I would let them too if they appeared in the middle of the night with unbelievable story no mater what race they were. Thoughts?