Review of Leave the World Behind

Early on, I knew I was gonna at least like parts of this made-for-Netflix movie, when the usually broadly smiling Julia Roberts admitted that she'd come to the conclusion that she just hated people. That's the same conclusion that seems inescapable to me every time I bring my dog to the park and realize I like the pets I see there vastly more than most of the people (and since they're mostly loving pet owners, they're better than most). I didn't look at any other viewers' impressions until after I saw it all to the end, but people seem to love it more than me (8-10) or think it's an unmitigated piece of crap (1-2). The latter are folks interested in plotting more than character development and that the principal responsibility of a movie is just to entertain. (As I recall, Sean Penn once said, "Movies are far too powerful a medium JUST to use them to entertain.") And that leaving certain plot aspects open-ended is a "betrayal" of righteous audience expectations. I couldn't disagree more with all of those folks, but I do rate this a 6.5/10 (and have rounded that up because of my respect for actor Mahershala Ali). Describing even minor points of the story would spoil too much of it, so if you admire Sam Esmail (of "Mr. Robot" fame) as a director/screenwriter and/or Mahershala as an actor, give it a try. If you don't like either, then don't bother with it.