Leave the World Behind sees a family of four going on a vacation. Their vacation is ruined when a series of strange incidents confuse and scare them. The film is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Amanda lives in New York with her husband, Clay, and two children, Archie and Rose. Amanda works in advertising, and Clay is a professor. One day, she rents a house in Long Island and takes her family on an impromptu vacation.
The house is beautiful, and the family gets a chance to unwind. However, strange instances start happening soon after. When they go to the beach, an oil tanker crashes onto the beach, destroying everything in its path.
The family gets out of its way in time and is unharmed. They return to the rented house, only to realize that the WI-FI is not working and that they have no service on their phones or the television.
Later that night, a Black man and his daughter, George and Ruth, knock on their door and introduce themselves as the owners of the house. Amanda, who dislikes people, is suspicious of them and does not believe them when they say they have come to the house only because there is a power blackout in the city.
George and Ruth want to spend the night at their house, but Amanda refuses. Clay does not mind them staying there, and Amanda has no choice but to let them stay when they find out that a national emergency has been issued.
The next day, Amanda wakes up to a news alert about a cyberattack on the country. As all their devices are still not working, Clay steps out of the house to buy a newspaper and find out what is happening. Without his GPS, he gets lost and comes across a drone dropping leaflets.
Meanwhile, George goes to his neighbor’s house to see if the family is home. He tries to use his neighbor’s satellite phone, but it does not work, which means their satellites have been knocked out. He then witnesses one of many planes losing control and crashing on the beach.
George returns home and informs Amanda about what he has learned and seen. Then, a persistent noise is heard, and it is unbearable. Amanda rushes into the woods that surround the house to find her children. Once the noise subsides, she finds them.
Clay returns home with a leaflet. Neither of the two families understands what is written on it, as it is written in a foreign language. However, Archie, who has seen it in a game, informs them that the front page says “Death to America”.
Amanda and Clay are too scared to stay there and do nothing. They decide to go to New Jersey to Amanda’s sister’s house. George thinks that it is dangerous to leave and tries to stop them, but they do not listen.
However, they are forced to return to the house very soon, as brand-new automatic cars are crashing into each other and blocking the roads, making it impossible to leave. Despite Amanda’s rude behavior, George allows the family to stay at his house.
Later, Amanda apologizes to him, and George reveals the real reason for coming to this house in the middle of the night. One of George’s very influential and powerful clients once told him about an evil cabal that runs the world.
When the same client asked George to move around his money out of the blue and told him that he was going away for a while, George realized that something was amiss. He took the conversation as a warning that something catastrophic is going to happen, so he drove Ruth out of the city as soon as the blackout happened.
George and Amanda then dance together after a stressful day. George also admits to Amanda that his wife, who was supposed to fly home, is probably dead. Amanda no longer suspects George and Ruth of having an ulterior motive and assures George that they are in this together.
The next day, Archie, who was bitten by an insect a day ago, starts puking blood and pulling out his teeth. On top of that, Rose is now nowhere to be found.
George promises Amanda that he will help Archie. His contractor, Danny, is a self-proclaimed survivalist and stocks up on essentials regularly. George takes Clay and Archie to Danny’s house to get medicine for Archie, whereas Amanda and Ruth go into the woods to look for Rose.
Leave the World Behind ending explained in detail:
Do Amanda and Ruth resolve their differences?
Since the moment Amanda and Ruth met, they have disliked each other, as Amanda did not treat George and Ruth with respect. She still does not realize that Ruth is also going through a difficult time because she needs her mother right now but does not even know whether or not she is alive.
Ruth thinks that Amanda does not care, but Amanda insists otherwise. Amanda is so mistrustful of others because she knows how awful humans can be. She does not want to be a terrible person, and she wants people back, even though she keeps saying that she hates them.
The admission helps the two women understand each other. Amanda comes across bicycle tracks and follows them in the hope of finding Rose. On the other hand, Ruth finds herself surrounded by a herd of deer.
Amanda comes to Ruth’s rescue. The two of them manage to chase the deer away and comfort each other. They then reach a point in the woods from where Manhattan is visible. Amanda and Ruth hold hands as they see planes crashing everywhere, resulting in explosions that burn the city down.
What do George and Clay find out?
George and Clay pay Danny a visit and ask him for the medicine that Archie needs, but he refuses to help them out. He is only going to protect his family and not help anyone, not even his friends.
As George refuses to leave without the medicine, both Danny and George pull out their guns. Clay stops them from shooting at each other and begs Danny for the medicine. Danny finally agrees and gives them the medicine in exchange for money.
George, Clay, and Archie then leave his house, but not without some new information and theories. Danny informs them that the Russians recalled their staff from Washington and that George’s neighbors, the Thornes family, built an emergency bunker.
Danny also tells them that leaflets in different languages are being dropped in various cities. The US has a lot of enemies, and Danny thinks that they could be teaming up to destroy this country.
The conversation confirms suspicions that George has not shared with anyone. He knows about a three-stage maneuver that can topple a country’s government from within.
The first two stages involve isolating the citizens by disabling their communication and transportation and creating chaos by terrorizing them. These two stages cause people to turn on each other, which is already happening in the US.
The third stage involves a coup or civil war. This whole process destabilizes an already dysfunctional country. As it is time for the third stage, George plans to take Clay’s family and his own daughter to the emergency bunker that Danny mentioned. This is the only way to keep both families safe.
Where is Rose?
Rose had seen everything that was happening around her as a warning and set out to save herself. She breaks into the house of the Thornes family and eats whatever she wants. She hears her mother, who has been following her tracks, calling out her name.
When she is going out to meet her mother, she gets distracted by a light coming from the basement. Rose follows the light and comes across the emergency bunker, which is well-stocked with everything that a person could possibly need.
There is also an emergency alert system there. It suggests seeking shelter immediately, as the White House and major US cities are under attack and radiation levels are rising near population centers.
Rose finds a shelf full of DVDs and finally gets to watch the last episode of Friends, which she desperately wanted to watch throughout the film. While the world burns down outside, she enjoys her favorite TV show.
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