Leave the World Behind (2023)

Everything is Disconnected ("Siri, What's This Movie About?....Siri?.........Siri?.....Do I Hear Chuckling?") 

 or

♪"Ain't That a Shaymalan?"♫

 

I just got a new cell-phone. A smart-phone. I'd had a "dumb-phone" before...for like 15 years—can't be that dumb if it's lasted for 15 years, can it? Very dependable. Always worked. Made phone calls. Text. The occasional picture. But, now a year in to smart-phone land, I find myself depending on it more...more time spent on this one than the last one. Too much time, really. I'm at that stage of life where I really shouldn't be wasting the amount of time I have left.

And I do it anyway ("idiot").

And I've been quite amazed on how much I depend on this phone for features that I quite happily lived without for so many years. And how much everything is now so tied up together with the phone, my car, my bank, my messaging...everything. And it scares the crap out of me. What happens when they don't work? Will I be able to go back to "analog mode" in order to get things done? Probably...it will just take more time (hopefully).

So, along comes Leave the World Behind—this year's end-of-year doom-and-gloom Netflix release (last year's was White Noise and the previous year Don't Look Up)--based on the 2020 best-seller by Rumaan Alam, and written and directed by Sam Esmail (creator of the cult series "Mr. Robot"). In it, a New York couple, the Sandfords, Amanda (Julia Roberts) and Clay (Ethan Hawke)--they have two kids, Archie (Charlie Evans) and Rose (Farrah Mackenzie)--rent an Airbnb for a short vacation out of the city...to Long Island. Amanda's a bit "prickly" from her work (advertising, natch) and Clay's work as a media studies professor is stressing him out, so the "vacay" is spontaneous and short, much like Amanda. 

And it's fine...a very neat well-designed house...with a pool...close to a beach. Then things get weird. An oil tanker heads right for the shore without slowing and runs aground. Then, everybody's cell phone goes out. Radio stations stop broadcasting. Computers work but can't connect to the internet, so they're a bit isolated for news. The place is still nice, and they're provisioned if they have to stay longer. Sit and wait. That's the best thing to do given any lack of evidence.

Until there's a knock on the door late at night. It's the house's owner, G.H. Scott (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha'la), dressed to the 10's after an evening at the symphony in New York. They've shown up at the doorstep because New York is in the middle of a blackout and they've come to their Long Island retreat for safe haven from the craziness the blackout has created. Amanda is suspicious—they could be anybody—but Scott has keys to the liquor cabinet and knows the email address Amanda contacted to get the place, and he even offers a bit of a refund for the inconvenience of sharing the place overnight. Some haggling and repercussions are interrupted by a notice that comes over the TV announcing that all stations have ceased functioning due to a national emergency. Reluctantly, Amanda agrees with Clay to let them stay...but there are questions. And nobody has any answers.

Some come through in the morning—Amanda awakes to some brief alerts on her phone's news-feed. The U.S. is paralyzed by a massive nationwide hacking attack on U.S. systems that have darkened New York and interfered with broadcast and navigation systems. But, more things have happened and continue to happen—there are distant explosions and a crippling sonic attack that shatters windows and deafen inhabitants. Wildlife is acting strangely—deer appear out of nowhere and the house pool is invaded by flamingos. Visiting a neighbor's home to commandeer a satellite phone, Scott finds that it doesn't work, indicating that U.S. satellite systems have been compromised. Drones drop leaflets that translate to "Death to America" and airplanes start to drop from the sky.

The Sandfords attempt to leave the island, but find the routes snarled by miles of Teslas drawn to the same spot by self-driving systems (interesting that this week Tesla has recalled models with that system; the publicity from the movie must not be good). Complications ensue and the Sandfords and Scotts must join forces to seek shelter as advised by Scott's contractor, a suvivalist (Kevin Bacon), who has prepared for the end-times.

It's a clever little conceit that plays on all sorts of modern fears of weak power grids, infrastructure lapses, "Havana syndrome," and hacker gangs and provides all the doom-scrolling you need for the modern world in one neat 2 hour package. That is if one can ignore the temptation of complacency and is paying attention. Snatches of "Special Reports" and recognition of this week's hole of fallibility go off in one's head as one keeps watching things for these people get worse and worse (the flamingos I've never seen covered on "60 Minutes", though) and it's all done for straight tension, not for any satiric purpose as in Don't Look Up.

It's aided and abetted by strong performers who are very good at playing "I have no idea what's going on but I'm not comfortable with it" and with a particular nod to Roberts for daring to risk her reputation as "America's sweetheart" with a performance that is flat-out vexing for its negativity and pure harridanism. One wonders how her character could function in the world of advertising with her ability to say exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. Her results must vary.

One must also admire the direction of Esmail, who, as if the events in the teleplay weren't off-putting enough, manages to present them in such a disorienting fashion while still keeping you aware of who's where and what their relationship to their surroundings are. One should always be aware of directors calling attention to themselves with camera tricks, but Esmail does them in such a clever way that one follows fascinated to see what he's going to do with it, rather than merely dismissing his tricks with a dismissive "show-off" remark. He also employs a nifty editing scheme: like author Dan Brown's way of ending chapters just as things are getting interesting, Esmail will cut away to another sequence when there's a slight escalation in tension, then cut back once that situation starts getting busy, and continues to see-saw with ever-building tension until a viewer is ready to snap. I've been seeing a lot of dismissive comments saying that Leave the World Behind is boring; there is no way it could be with this editing scheme—maybe those commenters upped their daily medication.

I found it to be a compelling little slow-burn thriller of the M. Night Shyamalan school—every-day situations are up-ended by some weird phenomenon that then goes to great pains to try to explain it all away, however tortured that explanation may be. Here, the speculations seem a bit more plausible, even if they are horrific in scope. Toss in some Fincher-style transition tricks, and one is slowly pushed to the end of one's seat...with the occasional check to make sure your devices are still online.

Even moreso, it reminds one of one of the better "Twilight Zone" episodes from that series' first incarnation. Leave the World Behind is the "The Monsters Are Due on Marple Street" for the 21st Century, and the coming Trumpocalypse.

 

And it still works.

Lightyear

To Xfinity and Beyond

or

Just Goes to Show a Movie Can Have Too Much "Buzz"

Buzz Lightyear (Chris Evans), Space Ranger, is on a mission for Star Command, when he's awakened by a signal telling him that they're nearing a planet with life on it. He goes out to explore the planet alone, leaving a team of scientists in hyper-sleep aboard his ship. Alone is what Lightyear does—he's a lone wolf and it's easier to do things himself. The thing is he's not alone: his commander on the mission, Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba) has tagged along, surprising the bejeezus out of him and noting the fact that he's "narrating again," which Buzz confesses is him doing his Mission Log (which no ever listens to). It helps him focus. What doesn't help him focus is the other member of "The Away Team," a rookie—with a not-very-reassuring reddish color on his uniform (for those of us who know "sci-fi tropes")—named Featheringhamstan (Bill Hader), whose defense stance seems to be "approaching panic." That would be the way to go, actually, as the planet has a slightly spongey surface, all the better for the tentacled underground dwellers to travel through and for the above-ground spider-crabs to scramble over.

 

But, it doesn't bode too well for any sort of colonization, so after tussling with those species (that's it?), Buzz and Alisha and Feathinghair...Farthinghamster..."the rookie" get back to the ship to try and lift off the thing—noting that their ship (let's call it "The Turnip" because they do) is sinking into the ground. Buzz mans the controls, while Alisha primes the hyper-space crystal for launch. Buzz is determined to get them off the ground, but the ship crashes, leaving them stranded on the planet...and worse for Buzz, leaving the mission uncompleted.

Okay, a diversion. But not as big as the one this crew takes to become deserted, so no big deal. Let us explain (as the movie does) that what we are watching is the movie that inspired the "Buzz Lightyear" toy from the always reliable "Toy Story" series that launched Pixar Studios into feature films in 1995 (Andy, the real-live boy from the series, loved the movie and his mom bought him one). So, this is not the toy we're watching, with it's round googly-eyes and the Tim Allen voice and the purpose of comic relief, this is a science fiction adventure film (with humor), rather than a comic film about toys having existential crises. It's a different animal, only tangentially related to the Toy Story franchise. 

 

Affirmative?

 

Let's move on.

The marooned colonists call the planet T'Kani Prime and their goal is to survive, use the planet's resources and build a launch platform to get them back to Star Command, and within a year, they have built an impressive "Gerry Anderson" inspired complex, complete with a bug-zapping fence and a launch vehicle to get them into space. But, first, they must test the newly-developed hyperspace fuel that could get them home. And that's tricky. They rig up a test-vehicle and select Lightyear—the fellow who crashed the original craft stranding them in the first place—to pilot the ship.

The test flight goes well...until it doesn't. That hyperspace fuel becomes unstable and Lightyear is unable to achieve the speed necessary to go full-hyperspace (it's amazing how similar the sequence looks to the early test flight in Top Gun: Maverick), but, he's able to get the ship back to planet, even though the mission is, technically, a failure.

But, he's greeted with surprise, even shock. "Buzz! It's good to see you!" For Buzz, the trip took hours. For the colonists it took "4 years, 2 months, and 3 days." The speed that Buzz achieved on-board his ship created "time dilation" so that a moment for him, would be days or weeks for everybody else—please see Interstellar for reference. Relatively speaking, Buzz has missed the 4 years plus, the colonists have experienced and there have been changes—in technology and people. To deal with the psychological consequences, Buzz is given a robotic therapy cat, Sox (Peter Sohn), but what he's itching to do is test the new hyperfuel again to see if it has made enough improvement to get everybody home.

So, he goes up again, with the same results. The hyper-fuel becomes unstable, and when he lands another 4 years have gone by: Alisha is in a relationship, his friends are older, the colonists have made more improvements and they have a new fuel prototype.

So...it's time to test again. Buzz goes up, the hyper-fuel becomes unstable, he lands, and another 4 years have gone by. Alisha is married, pregnant, and there's a new hyper-fuel. You get the pattern.

Buzz goes up again and again, each trip adding another 4 years to everybody else's life while Buzz stays in place in a sci-fi metaphor for life passing him by. Until the day that he goes up and the hyper-fuel—now designed by Sox the robo-cat in a long gestating project—is able to maintain integrity to make the jump to hyper-space. He's done it. The mission is achievable. He's able to get everybody home.

But, no one wants to leave. The jump to hyper-space has increased the time dilation so that 22 years (14 weeks, 3 days) has elapsed. Alisha is dead, her children grown, with grandchildren and the colony has made a stable life for everyone concerned. Buzz's mission is no longer relevant. But, a new threat has emerged: Zyclops robots, led by the evil overlord Zurg (James Brolin), have occupied the planet, the colony protected by a laser shield that is constantly under attack. And, there's a "rag-tag" group of defense forces—Darby Steel (Dale Soules), Mo Morrison (the ubiquitous Taika Waititi), and Izzy Hawthorne (Keke Palmer), Alisha's granddaughter, who join up with Buzz to try and defeat the Zyclops army.

Lightyear is absolutely gorgeous, as the Pixar team of artists have (again) pushed the limits of detail and design to bring the world—and new worlds—to life. But, the film disappoints. It's not because of Evans as the voice of Lightyear (he's great, paying homage to Tim Allen's legendary work as toy-Buzz, while giving this Buzz his own tamped-down personality), and it's certainly not due to any issues having to due with a same-sex relationship which flits by in the background while Buzz Lightyear obsesses over his one true purpose. These are prickly little "dog-whistle" issues that don't even deserve an internet comment (although there are many, all deserving to be dismissed).

No. The problem is the character of Buzz Lightyear, who is—necessarily—not the same goofy, though good-hearted, character of the "Toy Story" films, but is—in all senses of the term—his own man. Almost buffoonishly so. While the rest of the world changes, he stands, alone in his own stubbornness. He's a misanthrope, a Rip Van Winkle, out of time and space. In a way he's a bit like Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (but without the virulent racism) or The Outlaw Josey Wales (without the tragedy)—he even inherits an ersatz family which he initially scorns, ala Josey. But, unlike those he doesn't have a distinctive emotional epiphany—oh, he has one when he's confronting himself (and to explain that, you'd have to see the film), but it's so weighted down with an action sequence that one might be forgiven if it escapes one's notice. 

 

And it takes so long for him to come to his conclusions that he seems a little dense to what is going on all around him. Maybe it's all that narrating....spending too much time in his own bubble helmet.

Maybe I'll revisit Lightyear in 4 years, 2 months and 3 days, and perhaps find some aspect that might make him a hero...or even someone you'd want an action hero figure of.

Because for someone whose catch-phrase is "To Infinity...and Beyond(!)" he should perhaps choose "Affinity," instead. Until then, Lightyear will just be another lackluster choice in endless rotation on Xfinity.

 
 

Knives Out

Thrombey-land
or
Ladies and Gentlemen Grieve in Different Ways

Mystery author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plumber) is celebrating his 85th birthday in a big way. His family is celebrating at the quirky family home for the old man and—as with most family-gatherings—there are issues and squabbles. They all involve money, because Thrombey has been quite a success.

The first clue to that is that he's 85 and living in his own home, as opposed to a facility no matter how healthy he is.

The family Thrombey has done very well for itself: daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) runs a real estate empire with her husband Richard (Don Johnson), but that was done with a considerable loan from Harlan—their son Hugh Ransom (Chris Evans) left the party early after a tiff; oldest son Walt (Michael Shannon) runs the successful Thrombey publishing empire, but is dissatisfied with the elder Thrombey's resistance to selling the filming rights—he's joined by his wife Donna (Riki Lindhome) and son Jacob (Jaeden Martell); daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette), widow of late son Neil, has a line of beauty products and her own self-help business and is paying for her daughter Meg (Katherine Langford) to go an ivy league college.

Then, there's "the help"—housekeeper Fran (Edi Patterson) views the family with a jaundiced eye and maintains her helping attitude with a hidden stash of dope; caretaker-nurse Marta (Ana de Armas) is well-regarded by the family (even if they can't remember her country of origin) and much favored by Harlan for her good heart and her proficiency with the game "Go." After the party, Harlan, after talking privately with all the family members, retires at 11:30.

When Fran brings up his coffee, she finds his bed unslept in and undisturbed. Continuing to his attic study, she finds it very much disturbed and Harlan dead from a slit throat, bled out, his dramatic knife/letter-opener still in his bloody hand. The police think it's suicide and they are in the process—in the form of Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan) and Lt. Elliott (Lakeith Stanfield)—of interviewing the family about the events of that evening, with one addition. He is Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, looking perpetually smug and utilizing the drawl of Shelby Foote), consulting detective of note (and "The New Yorker") who has been hired—by parties unknown—to determine if Harlan Trombley really did take his own life...or if it was done by the hand of another.

Like that double-conundrum, Knives Out is a multi-layered movie, not only in its plot, but in its timeline-juggling and presentation. There are complexities built on complexities: the mystery of Thrombey's death, which—at the beginning of the movie—is assumed to be one thing, which is called into question not once but twice for different motivations; the mystery of Benoit Blanc's benefactor as the detective is publicly seeking the truth of the first mystery, but privately is working on who hired him for the job.

He spends a lot of his time grilling the family members, not only looking for clues, but also for motivations about why he might be there. So he eyes the entire family like a smirking hawk, which, initially makes him an unwelcome guest and something of a detecting third wheel—he calms the family's fears by purring "My position here is purely ornamental."). But with the reading of Thrombey's newly-drafted will—"Think of it as a tax return by a community theater..."—the family gloms onto him to prove that Thrombey might actually have been killed, staged to look like a suicide, thus nullifying a will that would leave his family nothing.

And that's where things really get complicated. But, to say more would destroy the web of evidence, the suspicions and the dynamics going on amongst the suspected and suspecting family, as well as the timelines based on points of view that Johnson has intricately constructed like a jenga tower to tell a complicated story, while simultaneously building on it.

Now, the way Johnson has designed it, it puts some focus on the family members and the actors playing them. But, no one has more pressure put on them than the character of Thrombey's nurse, Marta Cabrera (de Armas). Of all the denizens of the Thrombey estate, she is the one closest to the old man, knowing him best and having his trust. She is also the most vulnerable—she's not family, but part of "the help." She has to be compliant and complacent, because her mother is an illegal immigrant and the Thrombey patronage keeps her employed and her mother safe. She fears any threat to that comfort, and the family, especially in the absence of the patriarch, is a hostile work-environment despite the smiles and the surface friendliness.

All the actors have a fine time chewing their respective scenery, but de Armas has the toughest role, playing someone "with a good heart" in a den of thieves while not looking like a victim but also looking competent. De Armas has to go through so many moods that swing back and forth like a pendulum, fading into the background, lest she betray something to the family. She must become simultaneously suspect and detective in order to protect herself and her family. It's a tough job, and de Armas pulls it off charmingly.

Knives Out carries out the time-honored game-plan of the mystery genre, but twists it in a gordian knot. to build audience expectations and then pulls the rug out from under them, staying ahead of the amateur sleuths who are trying to outguess the already-worked-out scenario. At the same time, it's a Christie-an exploration of the foibles and frailties of the upper crust, who are only too ready to break through and fall into the goo, and showing how far things can descend when greed is bad...not good.

Avengers: Endgame

It's (Marvel) Clobbering Time
or
"Get Back What We Lost—Keep What I Got (Would Be Nice)—And Not Die Trying"

Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) said (in Avengers: Infinity War) that he had gone forward in time to see the outcome of the Avengers' battle with Thanos and that he saw 14,000,605 outcomes in which they lost and only one in which they survived.

When Marvel announced that their Avengers: Endgame would be just over 3 hours long, I thought, "Geez, do they have to show us ALL of them? Can't we just see the one?"

It turns out the one is enough to fill those 3 hours, but along with the idea of solving the problem of Thanos' grand scheme of culling 50% of the Universe's population—which takes relatively little time—it also has to reward movie-goers who have stayed through every frame of past Marvel Studios' films (starting with Iron Man in 2008) to give them what they want. 

Fan service takes a lot of time, it turns out.

There's a lot of that. "Fan service," I mean. There's a lot of call-backs, reflections, echoes, and cameo's—lots of cameo's—from past Marvel movies that they re-visit to give you that warm feeling that you're being rewarded for your recognition and thanked for your support throughout the whole, slow dissemination of the Thanos/"Infinity Stones" storyline.

And it has been a slow dissemination. My sister needed to know what movies to see in order to follow Endgame and I replied that she needed to see the Avengers series and the Captain America movies as essential (in this order: Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Avengers: The Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, and finally The Avengers: Infinity War), but if she wanted "electives," then the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie and Dr. Strange (maybe Captain Marvel, but not really). And that is as close to spoilers as I'm going to vault. This movie, in particular, needs a bit of background to fully appreciate it.

But, I can say the movie picks up at a singular moment for one of the Avengers after the "Finger-snap Heard 'Round the Universe." The one Avenger we didn't see in Infinity War—Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) has his little dust-up, and it sets him on a path of retribution and vengeance that attracts the attention of the remaining Avengers, although they stay out of it and away from him for the time being. There are other issues to take care of. Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) are marooned in space after leaving Titan following their disastrous encounter with Thanos, who is still out there...somewhere. And—lest we forget—Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is still trapped in "the quantum realm."

And that...is all I will say about that.

I will, however say, that it goes in a completely different direction than I thought it would, thinking that Captain Marvel would play more of a role—she doesn't, but manages to be efficiently useful when the Deus' are Machina'd. Core Avengers are utilized with special emphasis on The Big Three: Downey's Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth's Thor and Chris Evans' Captain America. They are given considerably more screen-time to complete their character arcs.

And there actually are character arcs (which is why the movie ballooned to such a length). I'd groused that Infinity War was all desperate action, with little emotional resonance to it, save for the actual culling of the Universe at Thanos' left hand. Here, the emphasis is on that resonance and it gives all the actors a chance to strut their stuff rather than just furrowing their brows and assuming the position. It also separates itself from the Marvel Comic Universe by taking those characters places they just wouldn't and couldn't in the comics. I liked that.

And as good as all these performances are, I thought the acting kudo's should go to Jeremy Renner, who must serve as the audience's emotional touchstone, starting with the very first scene and to almost the very end. He is quite amazing in this.

If the movie suffers, it is from too many endings, all in the service of character, which is a worthy thing to do, especially in a superhero movie.

"Okay, how many of you have never been in space? Raise your hand."

Also, Endgame is a different Marvel movie as it is more reflective and nostalgic, looking back, rather than facing forward ("true believers") and serving as a launching point for the next one, it is a completion. For that reason, you have no need to sit through the entire end credits. There is no teaser, no preview, no dangling thread. I only wish I knew that before I sat through the entire thing.

I have quibbles—I always do. There's the "too many endings" issue, a large continuity problem, the disparate fire-power issue, a few cute lines that land with a thud (and are repeated), and Thor's hammer. I have an issue with Thor's hammer. But, that's probably just me.

"Hey, Cap, do you read me?...Cap, it's Sam, can you hear me?...On your left."

It's well-done with a lot of fine grace-notes, and a climax that is, frankly, thrilling to behold. It's quite an experience...and very, very satisfying.