January 28, 2025 • 44 mins
Marc, Darren and Paul quickly breakdown the 2023 movie Leave The World Behind without spoilers. It was chosen by @JennesseeACT. Then they reveal some behind the scenes facts and trivia. Plus they discuss what would happen if this movie was released 20+ years ago, give you this week's 'Worth A Watch' and reveal next weeks movie choice.
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Darren Horne
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Foreign.
Hello, and welcome to Moviesin a Nutshell with me, Mark Farquhar,
myself, Darren.
Horn, and I, Paul Day.
Together, we're here to bringyou quick, simple, entertaining breakdowns
(00:23):
of movies, whether you've seenthem or not.
From timeless classics tohidden gems or the latest blockbusters
in cinemas, this is your moviesafe space.
But unlike most moviepodcasts, we're not a review show.
That means no endless deepdives, no unnecessary opinions, just
value for your time.
If it's a movie you've seen,you will probably learn something
new.
And if it's a movie youhaven't seen yet, we'll help you
(00:45):
decide if it's worth your time.
Don't stress if you haven'tseen that.
Must watch classic.
We've got you covered witheverything you need to know.
Now, there's a moment in everyepisode where we'll give you the
choice.
You can pause the podcast, goand watch the movie, come back and
join us as we head intoSpoiler city, or you can just come
with us for the ride.
So grab some popcorn, settlein, and let's dive into this week's
(01:05):
movie.
Okay, so this week's episodeis Leave the World behind, chosen
by Genesee D.
It's not our choice, it's you guys.
We'll be doing this every month.
The last episode of each monthwill be chosen by you guys.
We'll put polls out there,we'll put the feelers out.
(01:25):
You guys can send us in yoursuggestions right then.
So we'll do the diagnostics.
So it's available like wesaid, on Netflix.
Released in 2023.
It was rated 15.
It's 2 hours 20.
The genre is thriller slashsci fi.
There's a few other you couldhave thrown in there.
It stars Julia Roberts, KevinBacon, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali
and Maiala.
Directed by Sam Esmail.
(01:47):
Written by.
So it comes from a 2020 novelby Ruman Alam.
Yeah, it was released inCovid, so it did quite well.
Yeah, yeah.
Executive producers wereBarack and Michelle Obama.
I know.
That's a really.
That's got the Internet goingoff on some tangents on conspiracy
theories.
Well, that'll lead to more ina minute.
When I get to the rest of the stats.
When I was like, oh, I wonderwhat my facts should be.
(02:07):
And then their names came upin the credits.
I was like, oh, well, there'sone of them.
So their production company iscalled Higher Ground Productions.
So that's where that's come from.
Music by Mac Quayle.
The budget was unavailablebecause and this.
Well, I think we're going toget this going forward with more
modern films.
Doesn't really have thetraditional how many people paid
to see at the cinema.
That's the box office.
It doesn't really, especiallywith more different types of production
(02:30):
companies.
So what I found was it saysSam Esmail's Leave the World behind
has entered Netflix's mostpopular film list of all time.
The apocalyptic thrillerstarring Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke
and Mahershala Ali scores136.3 million views in the first
52 days, placing it on thenumber eight in the most popular
English films, ahead of GlassOnion, Knives Out, Mystery and Extraction.
(02:52):
So there wasn't muchinformation on what it took because
it didn't have the traditional.
I don't think it went to likeit didn't just go to cinemas for
a while and then go to streaming.
It kind of had a premiere andthen it went to streaming.
If anyone knows any different,please contact us.
Let us know.
So ratings and reviews.
Interesting.
What do you have you guyslooked this up?
Are you gonna guess what youwhat you think?
(03:13):
So let's go.
We all know Rotten Tomatoes,so let's go.
The critic view of Rottentomatoes out of 100%, what do you
think it got?
I'm going to say it's mixed.
The stir of the bag, it's gotto be mixed.
Mark Commode loved it and he'sa pretty good critic, pretty good
judge of movies.
But I've also seen otherpeople say it doesn't hold up.
It's not going to beeveryone's cup of tea.
Definitely it was the criticof it was 76.
(03:35):
Okay.
People who like it will reallylike it, I think and people who just
don't get it will be notenjoying themselves.
But that's up to you listenersto go and see what you think.
So the popcorn Amita, which isthe user reviews was only 36.
So the critics liked it a lotbetter than people the general public.
Because I'm really curious asto who the target audience is for
this.
That's true.
(03:56):
Yeah.
Who would you aim at?
Everyone.
Yeah, everyone who's hasdevices and lives their life online.
Really.
It feels like it's a futurecult classic maybe like where it's
very much set in its time.
Again, this is not spoilinganything because we've already said
it's about technology andthings, but yeah, maybe it's one
(04:16):
of those.
That is it really sets it in2023 and we'll look back and be like,
oh, 2023.
How quaint.
With mobile phones.
Before we had our memory chip.
Whatever.
Google glasses, Flying car.
Hoverboards.
We still haven't gothoverboards, Darren.
Why is it the hoverboard arethe last thing that we develop?
I say this every year.
And we're now in 2024.
(04:37):
We've literally got, like, AIrobots now that you can use as your
receptionists.
Yes.
They're $150,000.
Where's my Hoverboard?
I want the hoverboard.
That's good.
I'm glad you didn't say youwanted the robotic AI woman.
No, no.
But if you're listening and.
No, we are looking.
You want to try it?
Yeah.
(04:58):
We're thinking on the samepage there, but also the hoverboard
people.
Yes, yes, that too.
So moving along.
Swiftly.
Yeah, swiftly move.
IMDb gave it 6.4 out of 10.
Yeah.
Which is.
It's fair.
Metacritic, the Critic reviewwas 68 and the users was 4.8 out
of 10.
I'm curious as to what theydidn't like about it, because it's.
I think it's hard to put yourfinger on.
(05:18):
Well, that brings us on to thereviews, Darren.
I see what you did there.
So, as usual, I get threedifferent kind of different reviews
on what I.
Whatever people think of this film.
So, Lillian Crawford of Empire magazine.
Empire's good.
The tension is breathless andwell constructed.
But since they begin with adial at 11, there's nowhere to go
(05:39):
throughout.
The film's exhausting 140 minutes.
That's ladies Speaks Facts.
There we go.
Brian Lowry of CNN.com.
whatever one takes away fromit, Leave the World behind should
trigger conversations beyondwhether it hit to hit the like button.
Yeah.
By that measure, give Esmailcredit for a movie that up, down
or sideways makes it hard tolook away.
(06:01):
That's a really good point.
I think.
Even if something isn'tcommercially successful, if you kind
of impact the zeitgeist andget people having conversations,
that's always good.
That's the whole point of art.
Right.
That's success.
Really.
Yeah.
Regardless of, like, even didpull at the box office, it has another
life on streaming andobviously it became one of the most
popular films ever on Netflix.
So there you go.
(06:22):
It's definitely talkable about.
Yeah.
Talkable about.
You totally sounded like oneof those British gas adverts when
you worked with the Ardman tortoises.
It's talkable about.
Yeah.
It's Turn off.
Turn on an offerble.
It's turned on.
Yeah.
I Am actually a admin character.
Yes.
Cool.
I'm happy with that.
Something about you.
(06:42):
Yeah, that's what it is.
And our good friend PeterTravers again, this time writing
for ABC News.
Come on, Peter, give us it.
What do you think?
Is it going to be good or bad?
Darren?
He's not going to like it.
Paul.
I don't know, Peter.
He's normally fair.
I think he liked bits of it.
Okay, let's see what he put.
Oh, no, not another doomsday thriller.
Yes, but see how director SamEsmail, powered by an exceptional
(07:05):
all star cast, makes you careabout being human while frying your
nerves to a frazzle.
Wow.
He was having a good day that day.
Like, he hit no traffic lights.
His coffee was hot.
He had his sunny.
Well, he loved Wicked as well,so maybe he had his Wicked.
And the car.
And he's singing.
Defying gravity.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(07:25):
All right.
He's liking it.
That is indeed your real name.
He's a friend of the show.
Yeah.
He'll contact us soon.
I'll send him a text.
So I've looked up the synopsis.
I think in the future we'llget you guys to do it.
Once you guys, once we'vechosen your film, we'll get in touch
and we'll get you guys to sendus in your versions of the synopsis.
Nice.
And we'll give you a shout outon the show.
(07:46):
I'm gonna read out theofficial synopsis first and then
we'll have.
We'll have a look at.
Well, we'll probably just do it.
Do it ourselves.
Okay, we'll have a think about it.
Okay.
So the synopsis says afamily's getaway to a luxurious rental
home takes an ominous turnwhen a cyber attack knocks out their
devices and two strangersappear at their door.
Yeah, that's perfect.
Doesn't that doesn't give muchaway at all, does it?
(08:08):
So this is what I came up withbefore I'd read that and before I
looked anything up afterwatching it.
I just wrote it straight away.
When a family decides to takea break from city life in a beautiful
countryside house, the idyllicsetting instantly changes when all
devices and communications gooffline and two strangers knock at
their door claiming to be theowners of the home.
What is this movie about?
How do we break this down forsomeone who hasn't seen it?
(08:30):
Okay, so what is it about?
It's about how unbelievablyawful the human race is.
That's genuinely what it's about.
Or how it can be yeah.
How we all hate each other.
We've been gradually isolatingmore and more.
And that's also caused by therise of technology.
You know, you're gettingcuddle cafes appear usually in kind
(08:52):
of Asia.
But that's going to grow.
Like people are starved forphysical affection.
It's.
And.
And we're just seeing that.
And that's kind of really whatit's about.
It's how far we've gone andbroken out of the village mentality
and look out for your neighborand look out for one another and
how competitive we are and howwe will screw each other over at
the same time.
(09:12):
It's a warning against howreliant we are on technology and
how that can just absolutelyannihilate our lives.
And it feels in a very realway that this could easily happen.
Yeah, I thought, yeah, yeah.
This isn't too far away from reality.
And it feels like we're beingcareful here because the tension
in the film comes from thefact of not knowing about the film.
(09:34):
So trying not to spoil it for you.
That's why we're giving youthese themes of what it might be
about.
So for me, in a nutshell, seewhat I did there.
Gotta say, every time, everytime it's very much, what if technology
goes wrong?
And it goes way deeper than that.
Once you start looking at allthe symbolism, there's so many little
dicks at the human race.
(09:56):
Yeah.
So the A, B and the C.
So the first sort of threeacts, I guess the first act is when
they've obviously leave busylives and they decide to leave that
they decide to go for a break.
And then as soon as they getthere, they notice things.
Things a bit not as they seem.
And then the people who claimto own the home show up at their
door.
And it's pretty much whathappens after that.
(10:16):
Yeah.
Obviously the technologydisappearing, going offline is a
big sign that something's.
Something's gone wrong, butthey don't know what.
And then it's a combination ofthese strangers coming make.
And you're already questioningthings when everything's not working.
You're like, what's going on here?
Is this something bigger?
Is it just a local power outage?
Or are we talkinginternational conspiracy here?
(10:36):
And then with these strangerscome to the door claiming to be the
house, it's like, do you takethem on face value?
Where do you go from there?
And it's just basically aseries of events that lead them to.
Of the film.
It's also kind of hard tospoil it.
Because nothing really happens.
It never.
It never lets you know what'sgoing on.
Like, you bounce around between.
Is it like cyber hackers, isit aliens, Is it whatever?
But none.
(10:57):
No, there's no answers.
There's no spoilers becausethere's no answers.
It's.
It's.
It's that film about trust,isn't it?
Who.
Who you're trusting in eachscene and the way it's played.
Yeah, it's quite an arty filmas well.
So I would say it's.
This film is.
If you like your bigblockbusters and things like action
packed, this is not the filmfor you.
If you like a bit more of anarty film and talking and character
(11:19):
moments and that kind ofthing, this is more for you.
Yeah.
And the tension.
And there's a thriller elementto it, I suppose, isn't there?
Yeah, it had Night of theLiving Dead vibes because those guys
are.
There's a race element in thatas well.
And these guys are like in aheart, but they're fighting off zombies,
but they're still in the heart.
And a little bit of JohnCarpenter's the Thing as well in
terms of that paranoia.
Like, can you trust the people around.
(11:40):
You when the shit hits the fan?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it is someone's take onwhat could easily happen in the near
future.
Yeah.
And also, if you're a fan of the.
The one that kind of springsto mind just as we're talking about
it now is the Spielberg War ofthe Worlds.
Yeah, sure.
The start of.
It's very kind of normalblockbuster, but then it gets quite
personal as it goes on,doesn't it, with Tom Cruise and his
(12:01):
family.
And it's that kind of thing Itook away from it as well.
So it's.
It's stuff happening on abigger scale, but you're zoomed in
on this very small setting,this intimate family portrait almost.
Okay, right, that brings us onto Spoiler City.
We are about to enter this,dear listener, is the point of the
podcast where it's your choicewhether to pause.
(12:24):
If you like what you've heardabout this film, you feel like you
need to go watch it, do so now.
Otherwise head on with us intoSpoiler City, where we will.
Won't go out of our way tospoil this film for you, but some
opinions and things about thefilm may come out whilst we talk
about it.
So let's head into Spoiler City.
(12:45):
Right, so let's start withwhat did we miss?
So anything else?
What are your thoughts on thisone, Darren?
What did we miss?
There's so much that we missed.
Like, fast, fast amounts.
And what's annoying is I don'tthink anyone would casually watch
it.
Like, like, you know, I'm afilm lecturer.
I was watching it and doing mybest to kind of track what was going
(13:06):
on.
But then once I startedresearching it, there's tons of stuff
going on.
So in terms of symbolism.
So one thing that I reallylike is there's a movie called Bernard
and the Genie, and it's about.
With Lenny Henry.
Yeah, Lenny Henry is a genie.
Rowing.
And Alan Cummins.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I remember this as a kid.
And there's a bit where AlanCummings thinks he's getting praise
and he's stood in front of theLaughing Cavalier.
(13:28):
And then Rowan Atkinsonremoves it and changes it for the
Scream painting and then fires him.
And I was like, that's so cool.
You've changed the tone of theroom just by changing the painting.
They actually do it in thisfilm as well.
So there's a black and whitepainting in the living room.
Huge.
And it's kind of all blackwith kind of like white, four white
kind of tower imagesrepresenting possibly the people
(13:50):
in the room.
And then gradually it becomesmore and more chaotic.
And the ocean picture behindthe bed starts off as a fairly calm
storm.
And then as the movie goes on,it gets worse, worse and worse.
And it's like the water'srising, you know, that's so cool
to do.
But no one's going to spotthat stuff.
I confess, I didn't spot anyof that stuff till I was researching
my top five facts.
(14:12):
That was one of the thingsthat was on there.
And I was like, thatcompletely passed.
Me by as well.
Yeah.
I love the fact that she.
The girl Rose says she quotesAaron Sorkin.
So I was like, one of thefinest writers and creators, like,
ever.
He did shows like the WestWing and Newsroom.
Just phenomenal.
(14:32):
And she is quite liked that.
The Aaron Sorkin episodes ofthe West Wing are superb.
And it goes downhill becausehe is a whole big story.
I'm still on the Aaron ones,so I'm still good.
Yeah.
Anyway, she.
And she tells that whole storyabout that is quoted in that, where
she says, there's someone'swaiting for God to save them.
And, like, there's a flood.
(14:52):
And then like a dinghy comes.
He's like, hey, I'll come andsave you.
So, no, I'm going to be fine.
And say, hey, helicopters here.
He's like, no, I'm going to be fine.
And he dies and goes to heaven.
It's like, God, why don't yousave me?
So what are you talking about?
I sent you all this help.
And then she says, I'm done waiting.
And I think there's an elementof almost like divinity in this.
(15:13):
In that she's the one who'spaying attention to the deers.
The deers are kind ofsymbolizing that you need to become
a herd to survive this.
You need.
You can't be isolationist.
You need to be together.
And they kind of almost like,heard the people.
Like, they're encouraging herto, like, follow them.
And at one point, they blocksome of the other.
Well, they do say they'retrying to tell us something.
(15:34):
Yeah, totally.
I don't know what it is, but.
But she's the only one that listens.
Yeah.
And then she ends up at theThorne's bunker.
And the thorns job is toprotect the rose.
Symbolism.
And then she finds the friendsepisodes that she's been obsessed
with for the whole film.
And then it ends with thetheme song.
(15:57):
I'll be there for you.
So is that divinity or Godsaying you're like, hey, I'll be
there for you.
Just trust me.
I will look after you, or.
I'm reading way too much into this.
I think that's the beauty ofthis film.
I think it is working on.
On that symbolism stuff,Especially when I started researching
it and seeing that thepaintings were changing and all the
(16:20):
things I'd missed.
But there's also that otherlevel of.
For me, it was very much abouttrust and faith in people.
And Julia Roberts character,right at the start, she's like, I
fucking hate people.
So you straight out the box,you go, okay, she doesn't like people
very much.
And then her characterdevelopment as you go through the
film is her starting to trust people.
And that's kind of hercharacter arc.
(16:41):
It's a disaster film, but onsuch a small scale that you're just
trapped in this house.
So the tension on it is.
Is really, really good.
I thought also, like, the factthat Rose had a NASA top on, which
is like a symbol of.
Is that the greatest kind ofpinnacle of America?
And like, when they kind ofwent to the moon and it's hopeful
and it's.
There's something.
Kept going to shots of asatellite in space.
(17:02):
It did.
That was really annoying.
That was when I noticed.
I was like, oh, she's got NASAon space.
But then the guy forgotten hisname, her brother had.
It wasn't quite a JohnCarpenter's they live.
But it was the Obey T shirt.
Yes.
Where basically I knew I'dseen that.
See, I didn't know what itwas, but I knew I'd seen that somewhere
before.
Yeah.
So it's basically they ongiant compasses.
They live.
This is going to sound dumb,but he puts his special sunglasses
(17:24):
on and he can see what themeaning is all around him.
So, like, money, it says, thisis your God.
And like, an advertisementwill be like, you know, buy this
or Obey, and all that kind of nonsense.
It's part of our program, sothat was kind of cool.
I like that.
If you've got any things.
I mean, I've got more.
I don't want to take them all.
If you've got.
This is my.
This is one of my favoriteparts of this because I just sit
here and let you two talk.
(17:44):
Well, my main takeaway, ofcourse I'm going to say this is.
It just showed how importantphysical media is to help with.
I've written.
That is one of my notes here.
When she found the wall ofDVDs, I was like, oh, Paul's gonna
love this.
I approved of this very much.
Like, oh, that's what I'mtalking about.
And then she popped it in theplayer and obviously the menu screen
(18:06):
comes up.
And I'm thinking, yeah, to me,that's normal because I obviously
watch most of my stuff on tv.
Is she too young to know?
It's like, what do I do now?
Yeah, yeah, she was on it, though.
Yeah.
And I did enjoy all theFriends references because I love
Friends.
And of course, had that momentwhere I'm like, oh, my word.
Julia Roberts was in Friendsand dated Matthew Perry.
Oh, nice.
That whole little thing there.
(18:27):
I was, like, kind of strange.
Well, and then also, KevinBacon and Julia Roberts were in flatliners
together.
So I was like, oh, oh, sevendegrees of Kevin Bacon going on.
But overall, it felt like thatdisaster film that you would normally
get from Ronald Emmerich whereyou would be in the city blowing
up.
But it's not from the sea,it's from the outskirts.
And that's what made me thinkof the Spielberg or the world where
(18:48):
it's very much all through TomCruise's character, but the tension
of it.
So my only.
My bits were kind of technicalones, Darren, which you might come
on to as well.
But I really like the cleverediting on shots.
There was one shot which wasso subtle, and I kind of.
I made a note on it wherethey're inside the house with the
(19:08):
couple talking, and then thecamera kind of moves outside to the
window, but it did it so seamlessly.
I'm like, how have they done that?
Like, where's the set wall?
Yeah, they did that a few times.
Yeah.
And there was just some reallyclever shots and editing.
Some good thought gone intohow to just break the mold of some
normal shots.
Yeah.
To kind of create that tension.
(19:29):
And the only other big takeaway.
And then I'm going to letDarren go for it because I know his
symbolism is going to beamazing on this one.
But my only other thing wasthe music track and everything and
the sound.
I've got a fairly goodsurround sound system and some of
the surround sound effects andeverything on it were really, really
good.
Whether it was people knockingon doors in the corner of my room,
like, oh, I thought that wasin my room.
(19:51):
But also the music track onthe surround sound.
It was like jumping betweenback speakers.
My right and left rearspeakers were like jumping between
the two.
So.
Ye.
Yeah.
Lots of technical things thatI was kind of appreciating in the
tension of the.
Of the film, but symbolism.
Darren, go for it.
Before.
Before you.
I've just got short thing tosay on this.
The first one of the majorthings I noticed was the second Kevin
(20:13):
Bacon entered into the film,the music changed, the tone just
shifted.
Okay.
Because obviously they weregoing on holiday.
Everything was great.
He saw her and she clocked himloading up like as if some apocalypse
was coming.
And the music changed.
And I don't know if you guysnoticed, but when they went to the
beach before the boat startedcoming, the music didn't quite fit
the scene.
Oh, yeah.
(20:33):
Attention to it.
Even though they're supposedto be on holiday having the time
of their life.
And I just.
It was.
I really enjoyed that, like, foreboding.
Because if I had just thenormal music, I wouldn't be sort
of invested yet.
But I knew some.
It made me think something's happened.
So something's changed.
Because the tone of this musicdoesn't fit what I'm watching.
And I like that.
That's not.
That's unusual.
I find nice.
When Rose goes to that bunker,she finds all the store of food.
(20:57):
Tons of the food in there was problematic.
So there's like Aunt Mimer,Uncle Ben, Cream Wheat, which all
used to have problematicstereotypical representations of
African Americans in the sameway that our marmalade used to, didn't
it?
Yeah, I think so.
Was that marmalade?
Yeah, I think you're right.
Yeah.
Then they've got like IndianHead, Cornmeal they had these juices.
(21:20):
It was like Indian orange andChinese cherry drinks, but it had
really stereotypical racistkind of illustrations on them.
And then there's Barilla pasta.
And apparently their CEO hasmade quite homophobic comments.
So I just think it's like this.
This kind of, what you callit, a cupboard or pantry or whatever
full of foods that have beenspecifically chosen, and everyone
(21:41):
is problematic.
And it's just kind of like,how bad are we?
But there's more stuff.
Honestly, people in theInternet, attention to detail.
Hey, so this chip that crashesis called the White Lion.
And that was the name of thefirst ship that brought slaves to
the English colony of Virginia.
That's not a coincidence.
That's just like, we are bad.
(22:01):
We are.
We are.
We are terrible to each other.
The car radio is tuned to1619, which is the year slaves were
first taken to America.
Did you not get any of these?
We were watching different movies.
I didn't either.
That's next level.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then there was just somecool color symbolism, like blue.
(22:22):
It was really jarring how bluethe house was at the beginning.
And I was, ugh.
And then they were wearingblue, so they kind of disappeared
into it.
I never noticed that either.
Oh, I noticed that one.
Yeah.
Like, blue is good.
The house is blue.
The car is blue.
The clothes are blue.
Blue is all cheap.
Okay, you're making me feelstupid now, Darren.
Whereas.
Stop.
Whereas red is bad, and thetanker is red.
The leaflets are red.
(22:43):
The bunker's front door is red.
She goes, I think, upstairs,and that's red.
And then she goes downstairs,and it's blue.
Where all this stuff is.
The irony is, when I.
When I was watching this, Ifelt like, you know what?
This is one of them filmsyou're going to watch once and not
again.
And I thought that most of theway through, and you've made.
You've already made me want towatch it.
By the time I got to the end,I'm like, you know what?
I do want to see this again.
And now I really want to seeit again.
(23:05):
Just to see all this hidden stuff.
At one point, they do.
Like, I think it's an image ofthe camera.
What?
The images.
It's like the map of Americaand it's kind of pixelated.
Oh, yeah.
There's actually a QR code on it.
Did you see that again?
I didn't know until I startedreading about it.
And if you scan that QR code,it takes you to, like, a map area
of Lake Shorey, which is anamusement park in America that's
(23:28):
now abandoned, but was builton a Native American burial ground,
which is a horror movie just waiting.
And loads of kids died there.
Wow, this is insane.
Death.
This is what packed Phil.
We're in spoiler zone now, kids.
This is the longest.
What did we miss so far?
I also think there's a pointwhere Ethan Hawke says this, and
(23:51):
he says it in a really, Ithink, kind of a clunky way where
he's like, oh, it's interesting.
One of my ex students wants meto write the forward to her book.
She's written this book abouthow media is an escape, but also
a reflection of what's goingon in the real world.
That's basically what thismovie is.
You know, it's like, I likethat line.
It's not in this movie, I'veheard it elsewhere, that we art tells
(24:12):
lies in order to tell the truth.
And that's this kind of movie.
Like we're telling thisfictional tale, but it's also telling
the truth.
You know, there was that bitas well where the sisters.
No, well, the brother and the sister.
She's obsessed with friends.
And the brother's like, why doyou care so much?
And she's just like, I reallylike friends.
It makes me feel good.
And he's like, well, who thehell gives a shit in this kind of
(24:33):
what's going on?
And she had a point around,well, isn't this when we need it
more than ever?
And I thought, yeah, this is true.
Maybe sometimes people forgetthat sometimes the art is there to.
Yeah, that's probably thereason they chose Friends to be the
film.
Because it's about, like,sticking together, sticking together,
trying times.
But then the other girl says,Friends is nostalgic for time that
(24:54):
didn't exist.
So it's always.
It's almost like we all evennow wish we were at a period where
things were better.
But it's not nostalgic for herbecause she's experienced it for
the first time, the young girl.
Yeah, but I mean, that periodof the 90s, was it actually like
that?
Was that our fever dream ofhow good it was?
I wonder why that's.
I wonder if that's why theyput in the line where she's like,
oh, dad, can you take me toCentral Perk in, yeah, New York?
(25:17):
And he's like, it's a filmset, doesn't exist.
I wonder if that's why thatwas in earlier maybe.
Yeah, totally.
Because, like, when we thinkabout the 80s, like movies, 80s is
completely different it wasall Tupperware and yellow and brown.
Oh, yeah.
At times my mum had all of those.
Yeah.
The only other thing I caught,which probably no one else spotted,
is Ruth doesn't shave her armpits.
Did you see that?
(25:37):
Which I think thought wasquite a modern thing.
It kind of suggests that maybeshe's quite kind of liberal or hippie
ish or something.
She also had a 96 tattoo, butI don't know what that means.
But it's there for a reason,you know.
Anything else?
The other thing.
Oh, I meant to say this in thepre book, but never mind.
You've got this far now, listener.
It kind of had Lost vibes forme in the end.
(25:59):
So where there's this kind ofmystery box thinking, oh, who's this?
And who do you trust?
Who do you know?
So I was going to say, ifpeople like Lost and that kind of
thing, maybe they'd enjoy that.
But again, you're so far intothe spoilers now, I assume you may
have seen this film.
So, yeah, that mistrust thatran through it and kind of artsy.
And I really like Ethan Hawkeand stuff as well.
(26:20):
He always.
All of the cast brought a verynatural kind of delivery of stuff.
That's normally why I likeEthan Hawke is obviously the Before
Sunset trilogy and that kindof thing.
In fact, at times I'm like,oh, my God, it's Jesse from Before
Sunset, isn't it?
It's like, is this the next chapter?
Is this the part four?
But yeah, it's weird becausewhen Kevin Bacon turned up, I hoped
(26:41):
he was his character from Tremors.
That would have been helpful.
Yeah, the shotgun, exactly right.
He had to pick up.
That could have been helpfulfor the.
For the finale, couldn't it?
But there was.
There was one scene, they all felt.
Very real in it.
There was one scene where.
I don't know if they did it onpurpose, where something was like,
it went to space and somethingwas coming up and I thought it was
gonna be a spaceship, but itwas just the moon.
Yeah, totally.
And I think they were justmaking us think, what.
(27:02):
What's going on here?
That's an interesting point aswell, because.
Did you guys know about the image?
The pale blue dot?
Have you seen that?
It's like the first image wehad of Earth.
I can't remember what NASAmission it was, but somebody said,
I don't know if it was to themoon or orbit, but someone said,
turn the camera around, like,let's see what the Earth looks like.
And you just see The Earth,you know, obviously we're hurting
through space at a vast amountof speed, but it's just a tiny blue
marble in infinite looks.
(27:24):
So insignificant and we couldso close to destruction.
I think Carl Sagan does thiswhole kind of speech about it.
It's beautiful.
But I was watching that and Iwas like, are you thinking, are you
basically saying howvulnerable the planet is and we need
to get on, we all need to belooking out for each other and that
we, we can destroy this planetand we're heading in.
That direction without any help.
But that also bugged me, thatopening, because it started to feel
(27:46):
like a sci fi film and then itwasn't really a sci fi film.
No.
But it was just messing withour mind in terms of what's really
going on, what's behind this.
Also, it had kind of GeorgeCarlin, Bill Hicks vibes as well,
in terms of when they wouldtalk about kind of friends and escapism
and escaping into that.
And I think it's Bill Hickswho has this whole bit where he's
like, go to sleep, go tosleep, America.
(28:07):
Here's another season ofAmerican Gladiators.
Just.
And it's the whole Roman kindof games thing, isn't it?
Like we're going to distractthe masses with gladiator fights
and lions killings and stuff,as long as they don't challenge what
the politicians are doing, you know?
And the other guy, I think,even though I'm probably going to
say Mahersha Ali.
(28:28):
Am I saying that right?
He was so good at kind ofplaying that tension because there's
a moment where he goes to thedraw to get the money and there's
the gun in there.
Yeah, he did a good job of.
You didn't know if he was goodor bad?
No, but for a long time heseemed friendly still.
So it's like, I still think, I.
Still think he might be badbecause he lies.
Like, she says, oh, can I seeyour id?
(28:49):
And he's like, oh, in all thecommotion, I left it at the office
at the concert.
And she was like, no, thecommotion started on the way when
you were in the car.
That doesn't.
And then it moves on.
I know Julia Roberts was on itat that point.
I'm like, oh, she's gone intoBrockovich mode.
That bugged me.
Like, she's perfectlyreasonable in her hesitancy to let
these people in the house.
Like, that's a perfectlyreasonable response.
(29:10):
And the way she was made outto seemed like, yeah, I was just
like, no, no, she's got kidsin the house.
Loads of.
Every character was unlikableand it all makes stupid decisions.
But the, the end, the end waskind of a choice, wasn't it?
Where it, it ends in thatabrupt way with the friends thing.
I never even thought of whatyou said before about it.
(29:31):
I'll be there for you.
But it was.
I.
I found it at first it was abit abrupt.
I'm like, really?
Is that it?
Well, that's what I was goingto say.
It's kind of the elephant inthe room.
Yeah.
But the, the more I thoughtabout it, the more I'm like, I kind
of like that because it's leftyou to piece it together.
She's going to find the bikeoutside the house.
So they're going to get there,they're heading to the house.
So it's obvious they're allgoing to end up in this bunker and
(29:53):
everything's kicking off.
But it's let you piece it together.
I realize doing the review,looking at the reviews, I'll just.
First, it just shows you loadsof people who've commented on the
socials and on the IMDb page,and I think that's part of the reason
why they scored so lowly withthe users, is because people don't
like the fact that it sort ofended so abruptly and left you to
your imagination.
So I've put here, is that brilliant?
(30:14):
Is that bad or is it brilliant?
I saw a YouTube commentatorunderneath the video who said, the
reason it stops there isbecause we're living the rest of
the movie in reality.
I like that.
Yeah.
But it goes against alltypical, like, okay, we've been through
this, we've come to the end of it.
(30:34):
Let's have a happy ending.
It depends what you mean, though.
It depends who the hero is.
Like, if she's the hero andher quest was to find the holy grail
of the final episode ofFriends, she fulfilled her quest.
So as far as she's concerned,everything else that's going on is
above her pay grade.
Physical media.
All I'm saying is when I waslooking at the.
I started looking at any reviews.
Everyone was on this film forjust ending the way it did.
(30:56):
I don't know if people didn'tunderstand or they just weren't used
to that.
Like, you're not being spoonedfor the end of it.
Yeah, jazz me at first, butthe more I thought about it, the
more I'm like, no, I kind of like.
That they've given you all theingredients of, like, this is what's
been found.
This is what's been discovered.
These people have taken this journey.
There is this point.
This is clearly what's howit's going to end.
But we're so.
We're just going to end it here.
So I kind of enjoyed that.
It did make me make wonderabout it, but that's good.
(31:18):
I wasn't left for.
Oh, yeah.
I kind of could have predictedit because you couldn't.
This also had a kind of like anightmare or dream feel to it because
it was kind of trippy inplaces like obviously the deer's
turning up.
It was like quite a dream thing.
But the main dream thing ishim pulling out his teeth.
Oh, yeah, right.
That was.
(31:39):
It was like.
Because that's it.
That's a common nightmarewhere your teeth are falling out,
you know.
And in the movie it tries tosay, oh, it's because of the sound,
or it's because he got bit bya tick or whatever.
It's not really.
That's never really explained either.
And then it's just really.
It's almost like, you know,it's like every scene's just kind
of slotted together randomly.
It feels just very weird.
Let's hear what Paul has foundout about Leave the World Behind.
(32:02):
So a lot of the facts.
Darren said, the symbolismthings, so a lot of them are.
They're the facts I was goingthrough, but there's a few other
ones.
So here's some bonus facts foryou on top of them once.
So Kevin Bacon's character isa very detailed Prepper.
It's on IMDb, so it must be true.
Yeah.
He has a willow tree growingin his yard.
So that I can't say this word,but a certain kind of acid, it's
(32:26):
synthesized from Willow Burke.
It makes aspirin.
Yes.
There you go.
I still can't say this word.
Ace to cellatic acid.
There you go.
Okay, another fact.
Amanda's laptop and theemergency kits that Danny buys at
the store are made by E Corp,a fictional corporation that was
central to the plot of theprevious project by writer director
(32:49):
Sam esmail.
The series Mr.
Robot, a book beach towel,written by another Mr.
Robot character, Irvin, also appears.
I haven't seen Mr.
Robot.
I have.
Denzel Washington wasoriginally cast to play the part
now played by Maher gh.
Thank you.
But he must have dropped out.
I don't know whether he hadother projects or something, but
(33:11):
apparently originally it washim, Julia Roberts and the Obamas
who were kind of set up tomaking it because Julia Roberts is
One of the producers as well.
And final one.
Netflix won a bidding war forthe rights to the novel in July 2020,
with Sam Esmail attached towrite and project.
And like I just said, JuliaRoberts and Denzel Washington were
originally set to star andproduce it.
(33:31):
So Denzel was going to produceit as well.
But obviously scheduling orsomething must have got in the way
and.
But I think the other guy dida fantastic job as well.
He did.
So there you go.
Okay, that was Paul's facts.
Let's move on to takeawaysbefore we move on to the final section.
Darren, what have you got forthis one?
I didn't like this film.
It's always surprising when hedoes decide.
(33:52):
You don't know which way he's gonna.
And it angered me from veryearly on.
So there's a lot that I don'tlike with it.
And so the main thing is Ihate that opening when it's in like
the Blue House.
I thought that's a bit overthe top.
And I don't really believethese characters was interesting.
I never picked up on that at all.
It was just awkward.
But Julie Roberts is up andshe's packing and she's like, I've
(34:14):
decided we're going to go on a trip.
We're doing this, doing this.
And we never really learnanything about these characters.
Backstories.
There's nothing redeemingabout them.
It's almost like they're justtwo dimensional representations of
how we all don't get on witheach other.
There was a bit later whereshe asks, what do you guys do?
Yeah, just tell what they do.
But other than that.
Yeah, you're right.
And so that was annoying.
And then there's a bit whereJulia Roberts walks through the house
(34:34):
and the camera is like upsidedown at one point.
Yeah.
And like, so she's like.
If I'd shown at my cinema whenwe had 35 mil, I would have run upstairs
to the projectionist and beinglike, you freaking glued.
Because the wrong spin.
The reel was kind of upsidedown together.
Like, which he did do onceduring Clash of the Titans.
Oh, no way.
Yeah, he did.
Oh, man.
(34:54):
Thankfully we caught it inlike a staff show, so that bugged
me.
Then there's a bit where thedaughter is gone to wake up.
Julia Roberts character.
And she sat on her chest inbed with a glass of water.
But it's framed so she'scoming out of the left hand side
of the frame.
So the glass of water ishorizontal and would be spilling,
you know.
Okay, I'm Definitely.
Watching this film again,we've established that.
The camera movements are just.
(35:17):
It bounces between trying to be.
They would call it, like, masturbatory.
It's like, hey, look at me.
Aren't I great?
And Brian De Palma does itquite a bit, but not to this extent.
But then it bounces between,like, Edgar Wright style, like whip
pans.
I'm like, who directed this?
It's like.
It's like you've asked AI tobe like, what does a director do
now make this film?
And it's just been like, oh, Ido De Palma here.
(35:38):
I'll do Scorsese here.
I'll do some.
I do Wesanne Anderson here.
No bad.
So, yeah, mix your directing styles.
I hated the bit.
Like, at one point, for noreason, she's like, oh, that's a
Starbucks.
Then it cuts to them insidewith her with a big cup of Starbucks
in front of her.
I just figured that was thecommercialism commercial.
(35:58):
Exactly.
But it was a bit on the nose.
It could be.
Maybe it's just highlightingparts of the film where everything's
going smoothly and nicelybefore it all turns.
Also, this whole scene, thiswhole scene with the oil tanker coming
to the beach, which you thinkis going to be dramatic, and then
everyone just stands up andjogs to the left and then the oil
(36:18):
tanker hits the sand.
It just stops.
But also, this is what alsobugs me because it makes it feel
like it's a ghost ship becauseit's not hitting its horn or anything.
And there's no one.
We never see human beings on it.
And yeah, and that bug, that'sthe other thing that bugged me is
about genre.
Starts with space.
So you think, oh, this isgoing to be sci fi.
This is going to be aliens.
Then it's like a road trip,like disaster movie, kind of like
(36:38):
you were saying.
Then it's when the.
The other two turn up.
It's like a thriller slashhorror movie.
And it's about kind of racial tensions.
And then it's.
Yeah, it doesn't know what it is.
That tension is.
It was played well.
But I also like the fact thatthe girl Ruth was also had her own
prejudices because she saidsomething like, you know, if the
(36:59):
world's going to hell, trustshould be given out carefully, especially
with white people.
And I was, okay, so you don'ttrust white people.
Julia Roberts is wary aboutblack people.
It's, you know, it's.
I mean, it's.
It's sad, but I think that'severything I got.
Okay.
I really Enjoyed it.
(37:21):
Each to their own.
Yeah, it had me gripped likenot knowing what was coming, not
always behind everything keptme invested in this film.
Obviously I watch films with adifferent lens than you do, Darren,
so that's fine.
That's what, that's what you do.
Yeah, yeah, totally.
I keep it more sort of drawnback view.
So I'm just trying to take thewhole thing in, trying to experience
it as the director and thepeople who've made the film have
(37:41):
meant it to be.
I try not to analyze it toomuch, but I do afterwards then I'll
think about it.
But yeah, I really enjoyed it.
I was perplexed by the end atfirst, but then when I thought about,
I was like, I actually like that.
It's not traditional.
It breaks the mold, makes youthink and it's kind of given you.
It's laid everything out for you.
Here's what's gonna happen.
We're just gonna end it here.
And I was.
I was happy with that.
I really enjoyed it.
What you, Paul?
(38:02):
I'm somewhere in the middle,to be honest.
Yeah, I probably maybe didn'tenjoy it quite as much as you did,
but I didn't hate it eitherlike Darren did.
Yeah, somewhere in the middle.
There's definitely bits of itthat I really enjoyed.
There's some of the technical stuff.
Like I say the surround soundwas great experience.
Especially what they weredoing was the sound effects, the
(38:24):
music and things.
So that drew me right into it and.
And it drew me into it ratherthan making me think, oh, look at
them being fancy.
But yeah, then there's bits inthe film where I can't quite put
my finger on.
I'm like, I don't get thisfilm either.
So I get some of Darren'spoints as well.
Overall, enjoyed it.
And like I said before, it'sprobably not one I'm gonna watch
a lot.
I may watch it once more justto get some of the.
(38:46):
The things we've chatted abouttoday, just out of interest.
But I'm also.
Yeah, I like.
I watch movies to kind of giveme hope.
So I don't.
I respond badly to movies whenthey're kind of depressing or they're
telling me that.
And this is what this film's like.
It's like you're in late stage capitalism.
Something is going which iswhat we kind of all are feeling right
now.
(39:06):
There's this study done, Ithink come if it was Russia or Germany
where basically they knewtheir country was collapsing and
the government knew it, butthey couldn't do anything.
So everyone just won abouttheir business with their, like,
hands over their eyes andears, just being like, la, la, la,
Everything's gonna be fine.
And that feels like where weare now, looking around at the earth
and society and stuff.
So it's kind of like, it'slike this is late stage capitalism.
(39:28):
Everything's about to bescrewed in the near future, probably
within the next five years.
The human race is kind ofwashed up.
Your time is done.
We've got like, I love allthese actors, but they're washed
up.
They're past their prime.
Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke,Kevin Bacon, they're kind of.
They're the old guard.
They're the people who assumebe gone.
You know, they like the young actors.
(39:50):
The young actors aren't named actors.
Like, we don't know who they are.
There's no vibrancy there.
And maybe that's what we're saying.
Like, do we really know thenew generation?
How are they going to.
How are they going to fix themess that we've made, you know?
Yeah, well, there's that linethey kept saying, like, we're going
to be okay, right?
And I think a few of themsaid, oh, we're gonna be okay.
Right?
And they're like, itdefinitely made me think a bit.
(40:10):
I had some takeaways.
There was bits in it, I'm like.
And then there was other bits.
I'm like, you know, I loveFriends, so the fact they reference
Friends got some big pointsfor me.
But overall, I'd recommend itto people just to see what they thought.
But it's gonna be a Marmitetype film, I imagine.
Also, some people can't getpast the end.
No, also Hitchcock, though,you know where he's running away
(40:31):
from the plane that's purelike north by Northwest.
It's like this director's notthrow that in there.
Yeah, it' I mean, in a way, ifyou're going to shoot a kind of drone
about to do a strafing one,you might as well copy Alfred Hitchcock.
Is there a better way to do it?
But it's still kind of annoying.
There was another.
There was another cool bitwhere Rose says, no one cares what
I say, which was interesting.
(40:51):
She felt like she was almostmaking the most sense.
But her brother says, yeah,that's probably true.
That's right.
Which is amazing.
That was quite funny.
Yeah.
Classic brother thing to say.
I love the flamingo scene andI just wanted say that a group of
flamingos is called a flamboyance.
Oh.
Oh, that is brilliant.
I like that.
Okay, let's go to this.
Gonna be.
This could be interesting.
(41:12):
Test of time.
So this was only released twoyears ago?
Well, 20, 23.
So what would happen if thatwas released 20 years ago?
I don't.
For me, I don't think peoplewould quite understand what, what
it was predicting or like,because now it's.
It could be happening anytime soon.
Twenty years ago, people werelike, I.
Tell you what's weird is 20years ago, it might not have, but
(41:34):
20 would have.
Yeah.
Because you remember the fearcoming up to the Millennial and it
was like planes are going tofall out the sky, like the code isn't
written.
Like the whole system is goingto come to an end.
That would totally have worked.
That is true.
Yeah.
It's scary that that's howlong ago that was.
Yeah, yeah.
As we discussed the otherweek, a lot of the technology that's
(41:54):
being discussed in this filmonly was just in its infant stages.
Wasn't it that long ago?
Social media, even thereliance on pads to watch, you know,
TV shows, all that kind of stuff.
So they wouldn't haveobviously been able to include that,
which wouldn't have mewouldn't be able to get the point
across.
So in some ways it's almostgoing to be more of a sci fi.
Yeah.
That is of the science fictionbecause of the tech.
(42:17):
But other than that, I thinksadly the racial tensions would still
obviously hold up.
I think it would hold up.
Okay, so before we move on tonext week's movie, if you've enjoyed
the show, if you want to getin touch with us, you can email us.
Hello, Movies in a NutshellDot com.
If you want to support usbecause we're brand new, we need
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Just share the show with yourfriends, share it on your socials,
(42:39):
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All these things help us getdiscovered and help the show grow.
So next week's movie.
So we're back on to my choice.
I'm going to go a bit furtherback in time.
Literally 20 years ago.
We're going to go one of thefirst movies I remember about cyber
stuff.
(43:00):
It is the net.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
Have you seen it?
No.
Have you seen it?
I think I may have once.
I watched it once because likeany person who'd watched Demolition
man or Speed, that lady wouldbe on your radar.
That's what I was gonna say.
I haven't seen it, but I loveSandra Bullock with a passion.
So for me, like I rememberI've only seen it probably once or
(43:22):
twice at the time when it came out.
So I was probably about 15ishand I've not seen it since.
Oh, I just remember it had abig impact on me because obviously
I was.
Well, it was that, but it wasalso about emails and technology.
I was well into that alreadyand it was just, it was everywhere.
It was popular, very popularat the time, I remember.
So I just infer to me to watchit all these years later and see
(43:43):
if it, see if it holds up for me.
So there we go.
Next week we will be breakingdown the 1995 movie the Net with
Sandra Bullock.
Okay, so that is today'sepisode has come to an end.
Thank you guys for listening.
Thank you for those who havebeen sharing the show.
We appreciate that.
We saw that out there.
Thank you for all the commentsand suggestions that you guys have
sent in.
But yeah, as we say, if youcan, just the best thing you can
do to help us right now isjust share the show, tell people
(44:04):
about it.
If you, if you like, if you'relistening to every episode and you
want you could think of justone person who would get something
out of this show or thisparticular episode, please send them
our way.
Okay, that's it.
Until next time.
It's Mark saying goodbye thisdown saying bye for now.
We're gonna be okay.
Foreign.
Hello, and welcome to Moviesin a Nutshell with me, Mark Farquhar,
myself, Darren.
Horn, and I, Paul Day.
Together, we're here to bringyou quick, simple, entertaining breakdowns
(00:23):
of movies, whether you've seenthem or not.
From timeless classics tohidden gems or the latest blockbusters
in cinemas, this is your moviesafe space.
But unlike most moviepodcasts, we're not a review show.
That means no endless deepdives, no unnecessary opinions, just
value for your time.
If it's a movie you've seen,you will probably learn something
new.
And if it's a movie youhaven't seen yet, we'll help you
(00:45):
decide if it's worth your time.
Don't stress if you haven'tseen that.
Must watch classic.
We've got you covered witheverything you need to know.
Now, there's a moment in everyepisode where we'll give you the
choice.
You can pause the podcast, goand watch the movie, come back and
join us as we head intoSpoiler city, or you can just come
with us for the ride.
So grab some popcorn, settlein, and let's dive into this week's
(01:05):
movie.
Okay, so this week's episodeis Leave the World behind, chosen
by Genesee D.
It's not our choice, it's you guys.
We'll be doing this every month.
The last episode of each monthwill be chosen by you guys.
We'll put polls out there,we'll put the feelers out.
(01:25):
You guys can send us in yoursuggestions right then.
So we'll do the diagnostics.
So it's available like wesaid, on Netflix.
Released in 2023.
It was rated 15.
It's 2 hours 20.
The genre is thriller slashsci fi.
There's a few other you couldhave thrown in there.
It stars Julia Roberts, KevinBacon, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali
and Maiala.
Directed by Sam Esmail.
(01:47):
Written by.
So it comes from a 2020 novelby Ruman Alam.
Yeah, it was released inCovid, so it did quite well.
Yeah, yeah.
Executive producers wereBarack and Michelle Obama.
I know.
That's a really.
That's got the Internet goingoff on some tangents on conspiracy
theories.
Well, that'll lead to more ina minute.
When I get to the rest of the stats.
When I was like, oh, I wonderwhat my facts should be.
(02:07):
And then their names came upin the credits.
I was like, oh, well, there'sone of them.
So their production company iscalled Higher Ground Productions.
So that's where that's come from.
Music by Mac Quayle.
The budget was unavailablebecause and this.
Well, I think we're going toget this going forward with more
modern films.
Doesn't really have thetraditional how many people paid
to see at the cinema.
That's the box office.
It doesn't really, especiallywith more different types of production
(02:30):
companies.
So what I found was it saysSam Esmail's Leave the World behind
has entered Netflix's mostpopular film list of all time.
The apocalyptic thrillerstarring Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke
and Mahershala Ali scores136.3 million views in the first
52 days, placing it on thenumber eight in the most popular
English films, ahead of GlassOnion, Knives Out, Mystery and Extraction.
(02:52):
So there wasn't muchinformation on what it took because
it didn't have the traditional.
I don't think it went to likeit didn't just go to cinemas for
a while and then go to streaming.
It kind of had a premiere andthen it went to streaming.
If anyone knows any different,please contact us.
Let us know.
So ratings and reviews.
Interesting.
What do you have you guyslooked this up?
Are you gonna guess what youwhat you think?
(03:13):
So let's go.
We all know Rotten Tomatoes,so let's go.
The critic view of Rottentomatoes out of 100%, what do you
think it got?
I'm going to say it's mixed.
The stir of the bag, it's gotto be mixed.
Mark Commode loved it and he'sa pretty good critic, pretty good
judge of movies.
But I've also seen otherpeople say it doesn't hold up.
It's not going to beeveryone's cup of tea.
Definitely it was the criticof it was 76.
(03:35):
Okay.
People who like it will reallylike it, I think and people who just
don't get it will be notenjoying themselves.
But that's up to you listenersto go and see what you think.
So the popcorn Amita, which isthe user reviews was only 36.
So the critics liked it a lotbetter than people the general public.
Because I'm really curious asto who the target audience is for
this.
That's true.
(03:56):
Yeah.
Who would you aim at?
Everyone.
Yeah, everyone who's hasdevices and lives their life online.
Really.
It feels like it's a futurecult classic maybe like where it's
very much set in its time.
Again, this is not spoilinganything because we've already said
it's about technology andthings, but yeah, maybe it's one
(04:16):
of those.
That is it really sets it in2023 and we'll look back and be like,
oh, 2023.
How quaint.
With mobile phones.
Before we had our memory chip.
Whatever.
Google glasses, Flying car.
Hoverboards.
We still haven't gothoverboards, Darren.
Why is it the hoverboard arethe last thing that we develop?
I say this every year.
And we're now in 2024.
(04:37):
We've literally got, like, AIrobots now that you can use as your
receptionists.
Yes.
They're $150,000.
Where's my Hoverboard?
I want the hoverboard.
That's good.
I'm glad you didn't say youwanted the robotic AI woman.
No, no.
But if you're listening and.
No, we are looking.
You want to try it?
Yeah.
(04:58):
We're thinking on the samepage there, but also the hoverboard
people.
Yes, yes, that too.
So moving along.
Swiftly.
Yeah, swiftly move.
IMDb gave it 6.4 out of 10.
Yeah.
Which is.
It's fair.
Metacritic, the Critic reviewwas 68 and the users was 4.8 out
of 10.
I'm curious as to what theydidn't like about it, because it's.
I think it's hard to put yourfinger on.
(05:18):
Well, that brings us on to thereviews, Darren.
I see what you did there.
So, as usual, I get threedifferent kind of different reviews
on what I.
Whatever people think of this film.
So, Lillian Crawford of Empire magazine.
Empire's good.
The tension is breathless andwell constructed.
But since they begin with adial at 11, there's nowhere to go
(05:39):
throughout.
The film's exhausting 140 minutes.
That's ladies Speaks Facts.
There we go.
Brian Lowry of CNN.com.
whatever one takes away fromit, Leave the World behind should
trigger conversations beyondwhether it hit to hit the like button.
Yeah.
By that measure, give Esmailcredit for a movie that up, down
or sideways makes it hard tolook away.
(06:01):
That's a really good point.
I think.
Even if something isn'tcommercially successful, if you kind
of impact the zeitgeist andget people having conversations,
that's always good.
That's the whole point of art.
Right.
That's success.
Really.
Yeah.
Regardless of, like, even didpull at the box office, it has another
life on streaming andobviously it became one of the most
popular films ever on Netflix.
So there you go.
(06:22):
It's definitely talkable about.
Yeah.
Talkable about.
You totally sounded like oneof those British gas adverts when
you worked with the Ardman tortoises.
It's talkable about.
Yeah.
It's Turn off.
Turn on an offerble.
It's turned on.
Yeah.
I Am actually a admin character.
Yes.
Cool.
I'm happy with that.
Something about you.
(06:42):
Yeah, that's what it is.
And our good friend PeterTravers again, this time writing
for ABC News.
Come on, Peter, give us it.
What do you think?
Is it going to be good or bad?
Darren?
He's not going to like it.
Paul.
I don't know, Peter.
He's normally fair.
I think he liked bits of it.
Okay, let's see what he put.
Oh, no, not another doomsday thriller.
Yes, but see how director SamEsmail, powered by an exceptional
(07:05):
all star cast, makes you careabout being human while frying your
nerves to a frazzle.
Wow.
He was having a good day that day.
Like, he hit no traffic lights.
His coffee was hot.
He had his sunny.
Well, he loved Wicked as well,so maybe he had his Wicked.
And the car.
And he's singing.
Defying gravity.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(07:25):
All right.
He's liking it.
That is indeed your real name.
He's a friend of the show.
Yeah.
He'll contact us soon.
I'll send him a text.
So I've looked up the synopsis.
I think in the future we'llget you guys to do it.
Once you guys, once we'vechosen your film, we'll get in touch
and we'll get you guys to sendus in your versions of the synopsis.
Nice.
And we'll give you a shout outon the show.
(07:46):
I'm gonna read out theofficial synopsis first and then
we'll have.
We'll have a look at.
Well, we'll probably just do it.
Do it ourselves.
Okay, we'll have a think about it.
Okay.
So the synopsis says afamily's getaway to a luxurious rental
home takes an ominous turnwhen a cyber attack knocks out their
devices and two strangersappear at their door.
Yeah, that's perfect.
Doesn't that doesn't give muchaway at all, does it?
(08:08):
So this is what I came up withbefore I'd read that and before I
looked anything up afterwatching it.
I just wrote it straight away.
When a family decides to takea break from city life in a beautiful
countryside house, the idyllicsetting instantly changes when all
devices and communications gooffline and two strangers knock at
their door claiming to be theowners of the home.
What is this movie about?
How do we break this down forsomeone who hasn't seen it?
(08:30):
Okay, so what is it about?
It's about how unbelievablyawful the human race is.
That's genuinely what it's about.
Or how it can be yeah.
How we all hate each other.
We've been gradually isolatingmore and more.
And that's also caused by therise of technology.
You know, you're gettingcuddle cafes appear usually in kind
(08:52):
of Asia.
But that's going to grow.
Like people are starved forphysical affection.
It's.
And.
And we're just seeing that.
And that's kind of really whatit's about.
It's how far we've gone andbroken out of the village mentality
and look out for your neighborand look out for one another and
how competitive we are and howwe will screw each other over at
the same time.
(09:12):
It's a warning against howreliant we are on technology and
how that can just absolutelyannihilate our lives.
And it feels in a very realway that this could easily happen.
Yeah, I thought, yeah, yeah.
This isn't too far away from reality.
And it feels like we're beingcareful here because the tension
in the film comes from thefact of not knowing about the film.
(09:34):
So trying not to spoil it for you.
That's why we're giving youthese themes of what it might be
about.
So for me, in a nutshell, seewhat I did there.
Gotta say, every time, everytime it's very much, what if technology
goes wrong?
And it goes way deeper than that.
Once you start looking at allthe symbolism, there's so many little
dicks at the human race.
(09:56):
Yeah.
So the A, B and the C.
So the first sort of threeacts, I guess the first act is when
they've obviously leave busylives and they decide to leave that
they decide to go for a break.
And then as soon as they getthere, they notice things.
Things a bit not as they seem.
And then the people who claimto own the home show up at their
door.
And it's pretty much whathappens after that.
(10:16):
Yeah.
Obviously the technologydisappearing, going offline is a
big sign that something's.
Something's gone wrong, butthey don't know what.
And then it's a combination ofthese strangers coming make.
And you're already questioningthings when everything's not working.
You're like, what's going on here?
Is this something bigger?
Is it just a local power outage?
Or are we talkinginternational conspiracy here?
(10:36):
And then with these strangerscome to the door claiming to be the
house, it's like, do you takethem on face value?
Where do you go from there?
And it's just basically aseries of events that lead them to.
Of the film.
It's also kind of hard tospoil it.
Because nothing really happens.
It never.
It never lets you know what'sgoing on.
Like, you bounce around between.
Is it like cyber hackers, isit aliens, Is it whatever?
But none.
(10:57):
No, there's no answers.
There's no spoilers becausethere's no answers.
It's.
It's.
It's that film about trust,isn't it?
Who.
Who you're trusting in eachscene and the way it's played.
Yeah, it's quite an arty filmas well.
So I would say it's.
This film is.
If you like your bigblockbusters and things like action
packed, this is not the filmfor you.
If you like a bit more of anarty film and talking and character
(11:19):
moments and that kind ofthing, this is more for you.
Yeah.
And the tension.
And there's a thriller elementto it, I suppose, isn't there?
Yeah, it had Night of theLiving Dead vibes because those guys
are.
There's a race element in thatas well.
And these guys are like in aheart, but they're fighting off zombies,
but they're still in the heart.
And a little bit of JohnCarpenter's the Thing as well in
terms of that paranoia.
Like, can you trust the people around.
(11:40):
You when the shit hits the fan?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it is someone's take onwhat could easily happen in the near
future.
Yeah.
And also, if you're a fan of the.
The one that kind of springsto mind just as we're talking about
it now is the Spielberg War ofthe Worlds.
Yeah, sure.
The start of.
It's very kind of normalblockbuster, but then it gets quite
personal as it goes on,doesn't it, with Tom Cruise and his
(12:01):
family.
And it's that kind of thing Itook away from it as well.
So it's.
It's stuff happening on abigger scale, but you're zoomed in
on this very small setting,this intimate family portrait almost.
Okay, right, that brings us onto Spoiler City.
We are about to enter this,dear listener, is the point of the
podcast where it's your choicewhether to pause.
(12:24):
If you like what you've heardabout this film, you feel like you
need to go watch it, do so now.
Otherwise head on with us intoSpoiler City, where we will.
Won't go out of our way tospoil this film for you, but some
opinions and things about thefilm may come out whilst we talk
about it.
So let's head into Spoiler City.
(12:45):
Right, so let's start withwhat did we miss?
So anything else?
What are your thoughts on thisone, Darren?
What did we miss?
There's so much that we missed.
Like, fast, fast amounts.
And what's annoying is I don'tthink anyone would casually watch
it.
Like, like, you know, I'm afilm lecturer.
I was watching it and doing mybest to kind of track what was going
(13:06):
on.
But then once I startedresearching it, there's tons of stuff
going on.
So in terms of symbolism.
So one thing that I reallylike is there's a movie called Bernard
and the Genie, and it's about.
With Lenny Henry.
Yeah, Lenny Henry is a genie.
Rowing.
And Alan Cummins.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I remember this as a kid.
And there's a bit where AlanCummings thinks he's getting praise
and he's stood in front of theLaughing Cavalier.
(13:28):
And then Rowan Atkinsonremoves it and changes it for the
Scream painting and then fires him.
And I was like, that's so cool.
You've changed the tone of theroom just by changing the painting.
They actually do it in thisfilm as well.
So there's a black and whitepainting in the living room.
Huge.
And it's kind of all blackwith kind of like white, four white
kind of tower imagesrepresenting possibly the people
(13:50):
in the room.
And then gradually it becomesmore and more chaotic.
And the ocean picture behindthe bed starts off as a fairly calm
storm.
And then as the movie goes on,it gets worse, worse and worse.
And it's like the water'srising, you know, that's so cool
to do.
But no one's going to spotthat stuff.
I confess, I didn't spot anyof that stuff till I was researching
my top five facts.
(14:12):
That was one of the thingsthat was on there.
And I was like, thatcompletely passed.
Me by as well.
Yeah.
I love the fact that she.
The girl Rose says she quotesAaron Sorkin.
So I was like, one of thefinest writers and creators, like,
ever.
He did shows like the WestWing and Newsroom.
Just phenomenal.
(14:32):
And she is quite liked that.
The Aaron Sorkin episodes ofthe West Wing are superb.
And it goes downhill becausehe is a whole big story.
I'm still on the Aaron ones,so I'm still good.
Yeah.
Anyway, she.
And she tells that whole storyabout that is quoted in that, where
she says, there's someone'swaiting for God to save them.
And, like, there's a flood.
(14:52):
And then like a dinghy comes.
He's like, hey, I'll come andsave you.
So, no, I'm going to be fine.
And say, hey, helicopters here.
He's like, no, I'm going to be fine.
And he dies and goes to heaven.
It's like, God, why don't yousave me?
So what are you talking about?
I sent you all this help.
And then she says, I'm done waiting.
And I think there's an elementof almost like divinity in this.
(15:13):
In that she's the one who'spaying attention to the deers.
The deers are kind ofsymbolizing that you need to become
a herd to survive this.
You need.
You can't be isolationist.
You need to be together.
And they kind of almost like,heard the people.
Like, they're encouraging herto, like, follow them.
And at one point, they blocksome of the other.
Well, they do say they'retrying to tell us something.
(15:34):
Yeah, totally.
I don't know what it is, but.
But she's the only one that listens.
Yeah.
And then she ends up at theThorne's bunker.
And the thorns job is toprotect the rose.
Symbolism.
And then she finds the friendsepisodes that she's been obsessed
with for the whole film.
And then it ends with thetheme song.
(15:57):
I'll be there for you.
So is that divinity or Godsaying you're like, hey, I'll be
there for you.
Just trust me.
I will look after you, or.
I'm reading way too much into this.
I think that's the beauty ofthis film.
I think it is working on.
On that symbolism stuff,Especially when I started researching
it and seeing that thepaintings were changing and all the
(16:20):
things I'd missed.
But there's also that otherlevel of.
For me, it was very much abouttrust and faith in people.
And Julia Roberts character,right at the start, she's like, I
fucking hate people.
So you straight out the box,you go, okay, she doesn't like people
very much.
And then her characterdevelopment as you go through the
film is her starting to trust people.
And that's kind of hercharacter arc.
(16:41):
It's a disaster film, but onsuch a small scale that you're just
trapped in this house.
So the tension on it is.
Is really, really good.
I thought also, like, the factthat Rose had a NASA top on, which
is like a symbol of.
Is that the greatest kind ofpinnacle of America?
And like, when they kind ofwent to the moon and it's hopeful
and it's.
There's something.
Kept going to shots of asatellite in space.
(17:02):
It did.
That was really annoying.
That was when I noticed.
I was like, oh, she's got NASAon space.
But then the guy forgotten hisname, her brother had.
It wasn't quite a JohnCarpenter's they live.
But it was the Obey T shirt.
Yes.
Where basically I knew I'dseen that.
See, I didn't know what itwas, but I knew I'd seen that somewhere
before.
Yeah.
So it's basically they ongiant compasses.
They live.
This is going to sound dumb,but he puts his special sunglasses
(17:24):
on and he can see what themeaning is all around him.
So, like, money, it says, thisis your God.
And like, an advertisementwill be like, you know, buy this
or Obey, and all that kind of nonsense.
It's part of our program, sothat was kind of cool.
I like that.
If you've got any things.
I mean, I've got more.
I don't want to take them all.
If you've got.
This is my.
This is one of my favoriteparts of this because I just sit
here and let you two talk.
(17:44):
Well, my main takeaway, ofcourse I'm going to say this is.
It just showed how importantphysical media is to help with.
I've written.
That is one of my notes here.
When she found the wall ofDVDs, I was like, oh, Paul's gonna
love this.
I approved of this very much.
Like, oh, that's what I'mtalking about.
And then she popped it in theplayer and obviously the menu screen
(18:06):
comes up.
And I'm thinking, yeah, to me,that's normal because I obviously
watch most of my stuff on tv.
Is she too young to know?
It's like, what do I do now?
Yeah, yeah, she was on it, though.
Yeah.
And I did enjoy all theFriends references because I love
Friends.
And of course, had that momentwhere I'm like, oh, my word.
Julia Roberts was in Friendsand dated Matthew Perry.
Oh, nice.
That whole little thing there.
(18:27):
I was, like, kind of strange.
Well, and then also, KevinBacon and Julia Roberts were in flatliners
together.
So I was like, oh, oh, sevendegrees of Kevin Bacon going on.
But overall, it felt like thatdisaster film that you would normally
get from Ronald Emmerich whereyou would be in the city blowing
up.
But it's not from the sea,it's from the outskirts.
And that's what made me thinkof the Spielberg or the world where
(18:48):
it's very much all through TomCruise's character, but the tension
of it.
So my only.
My bits were kind of technicalones, Darren, which you might come
on to as well.
But I really like the cleverediting on shots.
There was one shot which wasso subtle, and I kind of.
I made a note on it wherethey're inside the house with the
(19:08):
couple talking, and then thecamera kind of moves outside to the
window, but it did it so seamlessly.
I'm like, how have they done that?
Like, where's the set wall?
Yeah, they did that a few times.
Yeah.
And there was just some reallyclever shots and editing.
Some good thought gone intohow to just break the mold of some
normal shots.
Yeah.
To kind of create that tension.
(19:29):
And the only other big takeaway.
And then I'm going to letDarren go for it because I know his
symbolism is going to beamazing on this one.
But my only other thing wasthe music track and everything and
the sound.
I've got a fairly goodsurround sound system and some of
the surround sound effects andeverything on it were really, really
good.
Whether it was people knockingon doors in the corner of my room,
like, oh, I thought that wasin my room.
(19:51):
But also the music track onthe surround sound.
It was like jumping betweenback speakers.
My right and left rearspeakers were like jumping between
the two.
So.
Ye.
Yeah.
Lots of technical things thatI was kind of appreciating in the
tension of the.
Of the film, but symbolism.
Darren, go for it.
Before.
Before you.
I've just got short thing tosay on this.
The first one of the majorthings I noticed was the second Kevin
(20:13):
Bacon entered into the film,the music changed, the tone just
shifted.
Okay.
Because obviously they weregoing on holiday.
Everything was great.
He saw her and she clocked himloading up like as if some apocalypse
was coming.
And the music changed.
And I don't know if you guysnoticed, but when they went to the
beach before the boat startedcoming, the music didn't quite fit
the scene.
Oh, yeah.
(20:33):
Attention to it.
Even though they're supposedto be on holiday having the time
of their life.
And I just.
It was.
I really enjoyed that, like, foreboding.
Because if I had just thenormal music, I wouldn't be sort
of invested yet.
But I knew some.
It made me think something's happened.
So something's changed.
Because the tone of this musicdoesn't fit what I'm watching.
And I like that.
That's not.
That's unusual.
I find nice.
When Rose goes to that bunker,she finds all the store of food.
(20:57):
Tons of the food in there was problematic.
So there's like Aunt Mimer,Uncle Ben, Cream Wheat, which all
used to have problematicstereotypical representations of
African Americans in the sameway that our marmalade used to, didn't
it?
Yeah, I think so.
Was that marmalade?
Yeah, I think you're right.
Yeah.
Then they've got like IndianHead, Cornmeal they had these juices.
(21:20):
It was like Indian orange andChinese cherry drinks, but it had
really stereotypical racistkind of illustrations on them.
And then there's Barilla pasta.
And apparently their CEO hasmade quite homophobic comments.
So I just think it's like this.
This kind of, what you callit, a cupboard or pantry or whatever
full of foods that have beenspecifically chosen, and everyone
(21:41):
is problematic.
And it's just kind of like,how bad are we?
But there's more stuff.
Honestly, people in theInternet, attention to detail.
Hey, so this chip that crashesis called the White Lion.
And that was the name of thefirst ship that brought slaves to
the English colony of Virginia.
That's not a coincidence.
That's just like, we are bad.
(22:01):
We are.
We are.
We are terrible to each other.
The car radio is tuned to1619, which is the year slaves were
first taken to America.
Did you not get any of these?
We were watching different movies.
I didn't either.
That's next level.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then there was just somecool color symbolism, like blue.
(22:22):
It was really jarring how bluethe house was at the beginning.
And I was, ugh.
And then they were wearingblue, so they kind of disappeared
into it.
I never noticed that either.
Oh, I noticed that one.
Yeah.
Like, blue is good.
The house is blue.
The car is blue.
The clothes are blue.
Blue is all cheap.
Okay, you're making me feelstupid now, Darren.
Whereas.
Stop.
Whereas red is bad, and thetanker is red.
The leaflets are red.
(22:43):
The bunker's front door is red.
She goes, I think, upstairs,and that's red.
And then she goes downstairs,and it's blue.
Where all this stuff is.
The irony is, when I.
When I was watching this, Ifelt like, you know what?
This is one of them filmsyou're going to watch once and not
again.
And I thought that most of theway through, and you've made.
You've already made me want towatch it.
By the time I got to the end,I'm like, you know what?
I do want to see this again.
And now I really want to seeit again.
(23:05):
Just to see all this hidden stuff.
At one point, they do.
Like, I think it's an image ofthe camera.
What?
The images.
It's like the map of Americaand it's kind of pixelated.
Oh, yeah.
There's actually a QR code on it.
Did you see that again?
I didn't know until I startedreading about it.
And if you scan that QR code,it takes you to, like, a map area
of Lake Shorey, which is anamusement park in America that's
(23:28):
now abandoned, but was builton a Native American burial ground,
which is a horror movie just waiting.
And loads of kids died there.
Wow, this is insane.
Death.
This is what packed Phil.
We're in spoiler zone now, kids.
This is the longest.
What did we miss so far?
I also think there's a pointwhere Ethan Hawke says this, and
(23:51):
he says it in a really, Ithink, kind of a clunky way where
he's like, oh, it's interesting.
One of my ex students wants meto write the forward to her book.
She's written this book abouthow media is an escape, but also
a reflection of what's goingon in the real world.
That's basically what thismovie is.
You know, it's like, I likethat line.
It's not in this movie, I'veheard it elsewhere, that we art tells
(24:12):
lies in order to tell the truth.
And that's this kind of movie.
Like we're telling thisfictional tale, but it's also telling
the truth.
You know, there was that bitas well where the sisters.
No, well, the brother and the sister.
She's obsessed with friends.
And the brother's like, why doyou care so much?
And she's just like, I reallylike friends.
It makes me feel good.
And he's like, well, who thehell gives a shit in this kind of
(24:33):
what's going on?
And she had a point around,well, isn't this when we need it
more than ever?
And I thought, yeah, this is true.
Maybe sometimes people forgetthat sometimes the art is there to.
Yeah, that's probably thereason they chose Friends to be the
film.
Because it's about, like,sticking together, sticking together,
trying times.
But then the other girl says,Friends is nostalgic for time that
(24:54):
didn't exist.
So it's always.
It's almost like we all evennow wish we were at a period where
things were better.
But it's not nostalgic for herbecause she's experienced it for
the first time, the young girl.
Yeah, but I mean, that periodof the 90s, was it actually like
that?
Was that our fever dream ofhow good it was?
I wonder why that's.
I wonder if that's why theyput in the line where she's like,
oh, dad, can you take me toCentral Perk in, yeah, New York?
(25:17):
And he's like, it's a filmset, doesn't exist.
I wonder if that's why thatwas in earlier maybe.
Yeah, totally.
Because, like, when we thinkabout the 80s, like movies, 80s is
completely different it wasall Tupperware and yellow and brown.
Oh, yeah.
At times my mum had all of those.
Yeah.
The only other thing I caught,which probably no one else spotted,
is Ruth doesn't shave her armpits.
Did you see that?
(25:37):
Which I think thought wasquite a modern thing.
It kind of suggests that maybeshe's quite kind of liberal or hippie
ish or something.
She also had a 96 tattoo, butI don't know what that means.
But it's there for a reason,you know.
Anything else?
The other thing.
Oh, I meant to say this in thepre book, but never mind.
You've got this far now, listener.
It kind of had Lost vibes forme in the end.
(25:59):
So where there's this kind ofmystery box thinking, oh, who's this?
And who do you trust?
Who do you know?
So I was going to say, ifpeople like Lost and that kind of
thing, maybe they'd enjoy that.
But again, you're so far intothe spoilers now, I assume you may
have seen this film.
So, yeah, that mistrust thatran through it and kind of artsy.
And I really like Ethan Hawkeand stuff as well.
(26:20):
He always.
All of the cast brought a verynatural kind of delivery of stuff.
That's normally why I likeEthan Hawke is obviously the Before
Sunset trilogy and that kindof thing.
In fact, at times I'm like,oh, my God, it's Jesse from Before
Sunset, isn't it?
It's like, is this the next chapter?
Is this the part four?
But yeah, it's weird becausewhen Kevin Bacon turned up, I hoped
(26:41):
he was his character from Tremors.
That would have been helpful.
Yeah, the shotgun, exactly right.
He had to pick up.
That could have been helpfulfor the.
For the finale, couldn't it?
But there was.
There was one scene, they all felt.
Very real in it.
There was one scene where.
I don't know if they did it onpurpose, where something was like,
it went to space and somethingwas coming up and I thought it was
gonna be a spaceship, but itwas just the moon.
Yeah, totally.
And I think they were justmaking us think, what.
(27:02):
What's going on here?
That's an interesting point aswell, because.
Did you guys know about the image?
The pale blue dot?
Have you seen that?
It's like the first image wehad of Earth.
I can't remember what NASAmission it was, but somebody said,
I don't know if it was to themoon or orbit, but someone said,
turn the camera around, like,let's see what the Earth looks like.
And you just see The Earth,you know, obviously we're hurting
through space at a vast amountof speed, but it's just a tiny blue
marble in infinite looks.
(27:24):
So insignificant and we couldso close to destruction.
I think Carl Sagan does thiswhole kind of speech about it.
It's beautiful.
But I was watching that and Iwas like, are you thinking, are you
basically saying howvulnerable the planet is and we need
to get on, we all need to belooking out for each other and that
we, we can destroy this planetand we're heading in.
That direction without any help.
But that also bugged me, thatopening, because it started to feel
(27:46):
like a sci fi film and then itwasn't really a sci fi film.
No.
But it was just messing withour mind in terms of what's really
going on, what's behind this.
Also, it had kind of GeorgeCarlin, Bill Hicks vibes as well,
in terms of when they wouldtalk about kind of friends and escapism
and escaping into that.
And I think it's Bill Hickswho has this whole bit where he's
like, go to sleep, go tosleep, America.
(28:07):
Here's another season ofAmerican Gladiators.
Just.
And it's the whole Roman kindof games thing, isn't it?
Like we're going to distractthe masses with gladiator fights
and lions killings and stuff,as long as they don't challenge what
the politicians are doing, you know?
And the other guy, I think,even though I'm probably going to
say Mahersha Ali.
(28:28):
Am I saying that right?
He was so good at kind ofplaying that tension because there's
a moment where he goes to thedraw to get the money and there's
the gun in there.
Yeah, he did a good job of.
You didn't know if he was goodor bad?
No, but for a long time heseemed friendly still.
So it's like, I still think, I.
Still think he might be badbecause he lies.
Like, she says, oh, can I seeyour id?
(28:49):
And he's like, oh, in all thecommotion, I left it at the office
at the concert.
And she was like, no, thecommotion started on the way when
you were in the car.
That doesn't.
And then it moves on.
I know Julia Roberts was on itat that point.
I'm like, oh, she's gone intoBrockovich mode.
That bugged me.
Like, she's perfectlyreasonable in her hesitancy to let
these people in the house.
Like, that's a perfectlyreasonable response.
(29:10):
And the way she was made outto seemed like, yeah, I was just
like, no, no, she's got kidsin the house.
Loads of.
Every character was unlikableand it all makes stupid decisions.
But the, the end, the end waskind of a choice, wasn't it?
Where it, it ends in thatabrupt way with the friends thing.
I never even thought of whatyou said before about it.
(29:31):
I'll be there for you.
But it was.
I.
I found it at first it was abit abrupt.
I'm like, really?
Is that it?
Well, that's what I was goingto say.
It's kind of the elephant inthe room.
Yeah.
But the, the more I thoughtabout it, the more I'm like, I kind
of like that because it's leftyou to piece it together.
She's going to find the bikeoutside the house.
So they're going to get there,they're heading to the house.
So it's obvious they're allgoing to end up in this bunker and
(29:53):
everything's kicking off.
But it's let you piece it together.
I realize doing the review,looking at the reviews, I'll just.
First, it just shows you loadsof people who've commented on the
socials and on the IMDb page,and I think that's part of the reason
why they scored so lowly withthe users, is because people don't
like the fact that it sort ofended so abruptly and left you to
your imagination.
So I've put here, is that brilliant?
(30:14):
Is that bad or is it brilliant?
I saw a YouTube commentatorunderneath the video who said, the
reason it stops there isbecause we're living the rest of
the movie in reality.
I like that.
Yeah.
But it goes against alltypical, like, okay, we've been through
this, we've come to the end of it.
(30:34):
Let's have a happy ending.
It depends what you mean, though.
It depends who the hero is.
Like, if she's the hero andher quest was to find the holy grail
of the final episode ofFriends, she fulfilled her quest.
So as far as she's concerned,everything else that's going on is
above her pay grade.
Physical media.
All I'm saying is when I waslooking at the.
I started looking at any reviews.
Everyone was on this film forjust ending the way it did.
(30:56):
I don't know if people didn'tunderstand or they just weren't used
to that.
Like, you're not being spoonedfor the end of it.
Yeah, jazz me at first, butthe more I thought about it, the
more I'm like, no, I kind of like.
That they've given you all theingredients of, like, this is what's
been found.
This is what's been discovered.
These people have taken this journey.
There is this point.
This is clearly what's howit's going to end.
But we're so.
We're just going to end it here.
So I kind of enjoyed that.
It did make me make wonderabout it, but that's good.
(31:18):
I wasn't left for.
Oh, yeah.
I kind of could have predictedit because you couldn't.
This also had a kind of like anightmare or dream feel to it because
it was kind of trippy inplaces like obviously the deer's
turning up.
It was like quite a dream thing.
But the main dream thing ishim pulling out his teeth.
Oh, yeah, right.
That was.
(31:39):
It was like.
Because that's it.
That's a common nightmarewhere your teeth are falling out,
you know.
And in the movie it tries tosay, oh, it's because of the sound,
or it's because he got bit bya tick or whatever.
It's not really.
That's never really explained either.
And then it's just really.
It's almost like, you know,it's like every scene's just kind
of slotted together randomly.
It feels just very weird.
Let's hear what Paul has foundout about Leave the World Behind.
(32:02):
So a lot of the facts.
Darren said, the symbolismthings, so a lot of them are.
They're the facts I was goingthrough, but there's a few other
ones.
So here's some bonus facts foryou on top of them once.
So Kevin Bacon's character isa very detailed Prepper.
It's on IMDb, so it must be true.
Yeah.
He has a willow tree growingin his yard.
So that I can't say this word,but a certain kind of acid, it's
(32:26):
synthesized from Willow Burke.
It makes aspirin.
Yes.
There you go.
I still can't say this word.
Ace to cellatic acid.
There you go.
Okay, another fact.
Amanda's laptop and theemergency kits that Danny buys at
the store are made by E Corp,a fictional corporation that was
central to the plot of theprevious project by writer director
(32:49):
Sam esmail.
The series Mr.
Robot, a book beach towel,written by another Mr.
Robot character, Irvin, also appears.
I haven't seen Mr.
Robot.
I have.
Denzel Washington wasoriginally cast to play the part
now played by Maher gh.
Thank you.
But he must have dropped out.
I don't know whether he hadother projects or something, but
(33:11):
apparently originally it washim, Julia Roberts and the Obamas
who were kind of set up tomaking it because Julia Roberts is
One of the producers as well.
And final one.
Netflix won a bidding war forthe rights to the novel in July 2020,
with Sam Esmail attached towrite and project.
And like I just said, JuliaRoberts and Denzel Washington were
originally set to star andproduce it.
(33:31):
So Denzel was going to produceit as well.
But obviously scheduling orsomething must have got in the way
and.
But I think the other guy dida fantastic job as well.
He did.
So there you go.
Okay, that was Paul's facts.
Let's move on to takeawaysbefore we move on to the final section.
Darren, what have you got forthis one?
I didn't like this film.
It's always surprising when hedoes decide.
(33:52):
You don't know which way he's gonna.
And it angered me from veryearly on.
So there's a lot that I don'tlike with it.
And so the main thing is Ihate that opening when it's in like
the Blue House.
I thought that's a bit overthe top.
And I don't really believethese characters was interesting.
I never picked up on that at all.
It was just awkward.
But Julie Roberts is up andshe's packing and she's like, I've
(34:14):
decided we're going to go on a trip.
We're doing this, doing this.
And we never really learnanything about these characters.
Backstories.
There's nothing redeemingabout them.
It's almost like they're justtwo dimensional representations of
how we all don't get on witheach other.
There was a bit later whereshe asks, what do you guys do?
Yeah, just tell what they do.
But other than that.
Yeah, you're right.
And so that was annoying.
And then there's a bit whereJulia Roberts walks through the house
(34:34):
and the camera is like upsidedown at one point.
Yeah.
And like, so she's like.
If I'd shown at my cinema whenwe had 35 mil, I would have run upstairs
to the projectionist and beinglike, you freaking glued.
Because the wrong spin.
The reel was kind of upsidedown together.
Like, which he did do onceduring Clash of the Titans.
Oh, no way.
Yeah, he did.
Oh, man.
(34:54):
Thankfully we caught it inlike a staff show, so that bugged
me.
Then there's a bit where thedaughter is gone to wake up.
Julia Roberts character.
And she sat on her chest inbed with a glass of water.
But it's framed so she'scoming out of the left hand side
of the frame.
So the glass of water ishorizontal and would be spilling,
you know.
Okay, I'm Definitely.
Watching this film again,we've established that.
The camera movements are just.
(35:17):
It bounces between trying to be.
They would call it, like, masturbatory.
It's like, hey, look at me.
Aren't I great?
And Brian De Palma does itquite a bit, but not to this extent.
But then it bounces between,like, Edgar Wright style, like whip
pans.
I'm like, who directed this?
It's like.
It's like you've asked AI tobe like, what does a director do
now make this film?
And it's just been like, oh, Ido De Palma here.
(35:38):
I'll do Scorsese here.
I'll do some.
I do Wesanne Anderson here.
No bad.
So, yeah, mix your directing styles.
I hated the bit.
Like, at one point, for noreason, she's like, oh, that's a
Starbucks.
Then it cuts to them insidewith her with a big cup of Starbucks
in front of her.
I just figured that was thecommercialism commercial.
(35:58):
Exactly.
But it was a bit on the nose.
It could be.
Maybe it's just highlightingparts of the film where everything's
going smoothly and nicelybefore it all turns.
Also, this whole scene, thiswhole scene with the oil tanker coming
to the beach, which you thinkis going to be dramatic, and then
everyone just stands up andjogs to the left and then the oil
(36:18):
tanker hits the sand.
It just stops.
But also, this is what alsobugs me because it makes it feel
like it's a ghost ship becauseit's not hitting its horn or anything.
And there's no one.
We never see human beings on it.
And yeah, and that bug, that'sthe other thing that bugged me is
about genre.
Starts with space.
So you think, oh, this isgoing to be sci fi.
This is going to be aliens.
Then it's like a road trip,like disaster movie, kind of like
(36:38):
you were saying.
Then it's when the.
The other two turn up.
It's like a thriller slashhorror movie.
And it's about kind of racial tensions.
And then it's.
Yeah, it doesn't know what it is.
That tension is.
It was played well.
But I also like the fact thatthe girl Ruth was also had her own
prejudices because she saidsomething like, you know, if the
(36:59):
world's going to hell, trustshould be given out carefully, especially
with white people.
And I was, okay, so you don'ttrust white people.
Julia Roberts is wary aboutblack people.
It's, you know, it's.
I mean, it's.
It's sad, but I think that'severything I got.
Okay.
I really Enjoyed it.
(37:21):
Each to their own.
Yeah, it had me gripped likenot knowing what was coming, not
always behind everything keptme invested in this film.
Obviously I watch films with adifferent lens than you do, Darren,
so that's fine.
That's what, that's what you do.
Yeah, yeah, totally.
I keep it more sort of drawnback view.
So I'm just trying to take thewhole thing in, trying to experience
it as the director and thepeople who've made the film have
(37:41):
meant it to be.
I try not to analyze it toomuch, but I do afterwards then I'll
think about it.
But yeah, I really enjoyed it.
I was perplexed by the end atfirst, but then when I thought about,
I was like, I actually like that.
It's not traditional.
It breaks the mold, makes youthink and it's kind of given you.
It's laid everything out for you.
Here's what's gonna happen.
We're just gonna end it here.
And I was.
I was happy with that.
I really enjoyed it.
What you, Paul?
(38:02):
I'm somewhere in the middle,to be honest.
Yeah, I probably maybe didn'tenjoy it quite as much as you did,
but I didn't hate it eitherlike Darren did.
Yeah, somewhere in the middle.
There's definitely bits of itthat I really enjoyed.
There's some of the technical stuff.
Like I say the surround soundwas great experience.
Especially what they weredoing was the sound effects, the
(38:24):
music and things.
So that drew me right into it and.
And it drew me into it ratherthan making me think, oh, look at
them being fancy.
But yeah, then there's bits inthe film where I can't quite put
my finger on.
I'm like, I don't get thisfilm either.
So I get some of Darren'spoints as well.
Overall, enjoyed it.
And like I said before, it'sprobably not one I'm gonna watch
a lot.
I may watch it once more justto get some of the.
(38:46):
The things we've chatted abouttoday, just out of interest.
But I'm also.
Yeah, I like.
I watch movies to kind of giveme hope.
So I don't.
I respond badly to movies whenthey're kind of depressing or they're
telling me that.
And this is what this film's like.
It's like you're in late stage capitalism.
Something is going which iswhat we kind of all are feeling right
now.
(39:06):
There's this study done, Ithink come if it was Russia or Germany
where basically they knewtheir country was collapsing and
the government knew it, butthey couldn't do anything.
So everyone just won abouttheir business with their, like,
hands over their eyes andears, just being like, la, la, la,
Everything's gonna be fine.
And that feels like where weare now, looking around at the earth
and society and stuff.
So it's kind of like, it'slike this is late stage capitalism.
(39:28):
Everything's about to bescrewed in the near future, probably
within the next five years.
The human race is kind ofwashed up.
Your time is done.
We've got like, I love allthese actors, but they're washed
up.
They're past their prime.
Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke,Kevin Bacon, they're kind of.
They're the old guard.
They're the people who assumebe gone.
You know, they like the young actors.
(39:50):
The young actors aren't named actors.
Like, we don't know who they are.
There's no vibrancy there.
And maybe that's what we're saying.
Like, do we really know thenew generation?
How are they going to.
How are they going to fix themess that we've made, you know?
Yeah, well, there's that linethey kept saying, like, we're going
to be okay, right?
And I think a few of themsaid, oh, we're gonna be okay.
Right?
And they're like, itdefinitely made me think a bit.
(40:10):
I had some takeaways.
There was bits in it, I'm like.
And then there was other bits.
I'm like, you know, I loveFriends, so the fact they reference
Friends got some big pointsfor me.
But overall, I'd recommend itto people just to see what they thought.
But it's gonna be a Marmitetype film, I imagine.
Also, some people can't getpast the end.
No, also Hitchcock, though,you know where he's running away
(40:31):
from the plane that's purelike north by Northwest.
It's like this director's notthrow that in there.
Yeah, it' I mean, in a way, ifyou're going to shoot a kind of drone
about to do a strafing one,you might as well copy Alfred Hitchcock.
Is there a better way to do it?
But it's still kind of annoying.
There was another.
There was another cool bitwhere Rose says, no one cares what
I say, which was interesting.
(40:51):
She felt like she was almostmaking the most sense.
But her brother says, yeah,that's probably true.
That's right.
Which is amazing.
That was quite funny.
Yeah.
Classic brother thing to say.
I love the flamingo scene andI just wanted say that a group of
flamingos is called a flamboyance.
Oh.
Oh, that is brilliant.
I like that.
Okay, let's go to this.
Gonna be.
This could be interesting.
(41:12):
Test of time.
So this was only released twoyears ago?
Well, 20, 23.
So what would happen if thatwas released 20 years ago?
I don't.
For me, I don't think peoplewould quite understand what, what
it was predicting or like,because now it's.
It could be happening anytime soon.
Twenty years ago, people werelike, I.
Tell you what's weird is 20years ago, it might not have, but
(41:34):
20 would have.
Yeah.
Because you remember the fearcoming up to the Millennial and it
was like planes are going tofall out the sky, like the code isn't
written.
Like the whole system is goingto come to an end.
That would totally have worked.
That is true.
Yeah.
It's scary that that's howlong ago that was.
Yeah, yeah.
As we discussed the otherweek, a lot of the technology that's
(41:54):
being discussed in this filmonly was just in its infant stages.
Wasn't it that long ago?
Social media, even thereliance on pads to watch, you know,
TV shows, all that kind of stuff.
So they wouldn't haveobviously been able to include that,
which wouldn't have mewouldn't be able to get the point
across.
So in some ways it's almostgoing to be more of a sci fi.
Yeah.
That is of the science fictionbecause of the tech.
(42:17):
But other than that, I thinksadly the racial tensions would still
obviously hold up.
I think it would hold up.
Okay, so before we move on tonext week's movie, if you've enjoyed
the show, if you want to getin touch with us, you can email us.
Hello, Movies in a NutshellDot com.
If you want to support usbecause we're brand new, we need
your help.
Just share the show with yourfriends, share it on your socials,
(42:39):
whichever platform you'relistening to, give it a rating, get
a review, hit the follow, hitthe subscribe, whatever you can do.
All these things help us getdiscovered and help the show grow.
So next week's movie.
So we're back on to my choice.
I'm going to go a bit furtherback in time.
Literally 20 years ago.
We're going to go one of thefirst movies I remember about cyber
stuff.
(43:00):
It is the net.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
Have you seen it?
No.
Have you seen it?
I think I may have once.
I watched it once because likeany person who'd watched Demolition
man or Speed, that lady wouldbe on your radar.
That's what I was gonna say.
I haven't seen it, but I loveSandra Bullock with a passion.
So for me, like I rememberI've only seen it probably once or
(43:22):
twice at the time when it came out.
So I was probably about 15ishand I've not seen it since.
Oh, I just remember it had abig impact on me because obviously
I was.
Well, it was that, but it wasalso about emails and technology.
I was well into that alreadyand it was just, it was everywhere.
It was popular, very popularat the time, I remember.
So I just infer to me to watchit all these years later and see
(43:43):
if it, see if it holds up for me.
So there we go.
Next week we will be breakingdown the 1995 movie the Net with
Sandra Bullock.
Okay, so that is today'sepisode has come to an end.
Thank you guys for listening.
Thank you for those who havebeen sharing the show.
We appreciate that.
We saw that out there.
Thank you for all the commentsand suggestions that you guys have
sent in.
But yeah, as we say, if youcan, just the best thing you can
do to help us right now isjust share the show, tell people
(44:04):
about it.
If you, if you like, if you'relistening to every episode and you
want you could think of justone person who would get something
out of this show or thisparticular episode, please send them
our way.
Okay, that's it.
Until next time.
It's Mark saying goodbye thisdown saying bye for now.
We're gonna be okay.
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