Netflix’s new psychological apolcalyptic thriller Leave the World Behind is full of mysteries. What happens after the movie ends? What’s up with those deer? Why is it so satisfying to watch self-driving Teslas crash into each other?
In addition to all the on-screen questions we have about the movie, many may also find themselves with some behind-the-scenes questions as well. Most notably, a lot of people have been curious about (and others have been ridiculously angry over) the role of the film’s high-profile producers, Barack and Michelle Obama.
Written and directed by Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, Leave the World Behind was produced by the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions, along with Esmail Corp and star Julia Roberts’ Red Om Films. Leave the World Behind is Higher Ground’s fourth feature-length narrative film since its founding in 2018. They’ve also produced numerous documentaries, podcasts, and television programs.
How much input did the Obamas have in Leave the World Behind?
With Mr. Robot, Esmail proved himself to be a visionary with an ability to translate lofty, complex, and eerie ideas to screen. And given that Leave the World Behind was adapted from Rumaan Alam’s novel of the same name, it’s not like the Obamas were in there banging out the script on their laptops, no matter what some viewers seem to think. (We’ll come back to that.)
Still, in a profile in Vanity Fair, Esmail says the Obamas definitely had notes, and helpful ones at that, especially when it came to the emotional tone of the script and the characters’ capacity for empathy.
“If there is a moral to Leave the World Behind, it’s that we will, at some point, face an overwhelming crisis, and we better be able to count on each other in some capacity,” the profile reads, with Esmail saying, “And we shouldn’t wait around until the catastrophe happens—the work begins now. I think [Obama] would say the same thing.”
That’s some huge “When they go low, we go high” energy.
Esmail says that in writing fiction, he “definitely pushed things a lot farther than they were in the film,” “exaggerating and dramatizing” the action. “President Obama, having the experience he does have, was able to ground me a little bit on how things might unfold in reality,” he says.
Vanity Fair continues:
The filmmaker was more reassured when the Obamas suggested some of his potential plot points were too bleak or unlikely. Most of the former commander in chief’s notes, however, stemmed from what he’d observed about human nature, particularly the way fissures form between people who might otherwise find common cause. “He had a lot notes about the characters and the empathy we would have for them,” Esmail says. “I have to say he is a big movie lover, and he wasn’t just giving notes about things that were from his background. He was giving notes as a fan of the book, and he wanted to see a really good film.”
Predictable conservative outrage
Leave the World Behind focuses on a lot of different elements of an apocalypse story, not the least of which is how race plays into how things unfold. There are little easter eggs in the movie, like the name of the ship that runs aground or the car radio’s dial being briefly set to 1619, that indicate a nod to the Obamas’ involvement and the emphasis on race in this story.
The more direct impact of race on the story is arguably seen most starkly in how Julia Roberts’ character Amanda is immediately distrustful of G.H. and his daughter Ruth (Mahershala Ali and Myha’la, respectively) when the pair shows up at Amanda’s family’s vacation rental identifying themselves as the homeowners, asking for help.
But many conservative “viewers” (in quotes because it’s pretty clear none of them actually watched the movie) are more concerned with the character of Ruth, and one of her lines in particular.
Just as Amanda does not try to hide her suspicion of the Black homeowners, Ruth does nothing to conceal her mistrust of Amanda. At one point, Ruth says to her father, “If the world falls apart, trust should not be doled out easily, especially to white people.”
Rather than show any modicum of interest in investigating why a Black character might feel that way, conservative trolls ranging from actor James Woods to Fox News hosts jumped on the line, calling it racist and putting the blame squarely on the Obamas.
“Why isn’t the headline the former president reviewed a script embedded with this racist line, and how did it get through?” former White House press secretary under Donald Trump Kayleigh McEnany asked on her Fox News show, apparently unable to understand that not everything said by every character in a film is a message being directly advocated by its creators.
She notes that she hasn’t seen the movie, which should be obvious to everyone who has.
As MSNBC’s Robyn Autry writes:
Ruth’s statement to not be trusting of white people, which most Black viewers would recognize as sage advice, is not the point of the film. It’s not even close to being the point of the film. The film is about the possibility of overcoming mutual distrust and suspicion, however reasonable or however unfounded. The film argues that even in periods of hostility, there are still opportunities for cooperation and even common ground, however painfully and shakily they come about. The love and trust might not come easily, but the possibility is there, somewhere.
That may be the most Obama message ever.
(featured image: JoJo Whilden/Netflix)
