I went into Sam Esmail's big budget adaptation of Rumaan Alam's novel with a certain amount of skepticism, only to realize my concerns were misaligned. The movie version of Leave The World Behind, isn't ineffective because it doesn't create a compelling enough predicament for our standout cast, but rather it never finds its footing well enough to make the film run deeper than an offhand barroom napkin story. And what it does present is a collection of contemporary fears without a central focus. The phenomenon at the heart of Leave The World Behind should work as catalyst for behavior, but Esmail seems to find distraction in all the set pieces and camera acrobatics to the point that it never lands its thematic punches with any urgency or weight.

This is especially problematic when all the film has going for it, is the careful stringing along of the mystery for both cast and audience. So once it becomes time for Esmail to reveal precisely what is going on, it runs head long into my own personal knowledge about the topic, and how the film in no way aligns with this scenario, even as characters contend that alignment exists.

Hint: it would be nothing like this. And even if it were metaphorical about it, this hyperbolic mess isn't even close. [By the way- the scenario Ali posits near the end of the film? We've been living it for seven years. General Mike Flynn's entire purpose is this-SPOILER it wouldn't take a few days. This takes a number of years, and requires many permissions on the part of both public and private entities. The reality is far slower, and far more insidious because the breakdown takes place over years, normalizing itself.]

Another case of hyping up a premise because movie. No other reason.

As remarked before, the film chooses not to be so direct with the phenomenon as if the responses between Roberts, Ali, Hawke, Bacon, and Myha'la are all that really mattered here. And even then, it is perhaps something far better relegated to the page. There are a couple of moments here and there, but the build never leads to a satisfying point of revelation. And the film's unwillingness to decide whether we are witnessing a thriller or a satire renders the entire thing inert.

It's all stick, no carrot.

It was interesting to stick around to find out what exactly was going on over 124 minutes. But to realize that the end result would sum itself up in nothing more than a series of neon signs blaring THEME overhead ending in a bad punchline renders this overpowered production more than a little toothless, pun intended.