Is there a good movie hiding somewhere in Leave the World Behind?

So I watched Leave the World Behind last night when I couldn't sleep and thought the performances were great and the idea was pretty interesting with a lot of tense scenes, but I just found myself bored through most of it and the pacing is so slow.

Also it felt weird to make Julia Roberts' character so racist. There were plenty of reasons for her to be suspicious of Ali's character and his daughter without turning the movie in a morality tale about not being prejudiced. I haven't read the novel so maybe that was just an accurate adaption of her character but it felt unnecessary.

As for where the movie feels interested, right at the end where Ali's character is explaining basically what's going on with the 3 step plan to destabilize a country I feel like it would have been more interesting to explore that more in depth as a more centralized concept. Whereas it's kinda dripped in with the dropping of the flyers and the high pitched noise but the movie needed something more substantial.

In the end I felt let down by the film, especially the ending, which is just a wet fart and a lot of the dialogue was felt goofy. I gave it 2/5 but that was mostly because the performances were really good (which wasn't surprising given the cast). But I walked away thinking it could have been so much better given the compelling (and relevant) subject matter.

Submitted January 15, 2024 at 09:13PM by FilmFifty2 https://ift.tt/mX6eflb