2024-02-16 00:09:14
Photo: Julia Roberts | Netflix
Text: Yanelys Hernandez
“Leaving the World Behind,†starring and produced by Julia Roberts, is a film that never ceases to surprise.
Based on the novel of the same title, the plot takes place on Long Island where an American family, made up of four members, decides to rent a mansion to spend an atypical vacation there, far from the hectic pace imposed by big cities. The human-technology relationship is approached from its different aspects, and taking into account the characteristics of each of the characters: age, context, level of education, personal interests… that mark the type of consumption they do when they browse the Internet.
We see Julia Robert as a mother, also as a woman and above all as a human being with her own fears and contradictions while she is overcome by a catastrophe without warning. The alleged cyber attack that they experience from the disconnected luxury mansion, an experience that, by a twist of fate, they come to share with its owners, becomes an avalanche of questions for the viewer: what would happen if the world changed as it do we know him? If the sources we ask everything don’t work, how can we solve our doubts? What would be the best way to react to a reality of that type?
The fiction arrives in particularly sensitive times after the Covid-19 pandemic, probably giving the film a little more realism.
Available on Netflix, “Leaving the World Behind†makes many nods to other products in the cultural and media industry, where probably the one that stands out the most is the connection with the series Friends.
The premiere of the film occurred just a few weeks after the tragic death of actor Matthew Perry on October 28, 2023, who played the funny Chandler Bing in the series, and who turned out – off the screen – to be ex-partner of Julia Roberts just when the second season of the sitcom was filming. This has been interpreted by many Friends fans as a beautiful tribute and a very Julia’s way of saying goodbye to Matthew through his artistic legacy.
Another nod, which may be surprising, is when one of the characters in the series, a contractor who lives next to the mansion, associates what they are experiencing with the alleged sonic attacks in Havana, where dozens of diplomats Americans in Cuba and their families reported hearing ringing sounds and then experiencing disconcerting neurological lesions, including pain, vertigo, and difficulty concentrating.
Danny, the contractor, assures in “Leaving the World Behind†that the situation “is not very different from what happened in Cuba a while ago. Microwave weapons, they call them. They produce a type of radiation that is transmitted by sound,” in clear reference to what is also known as “Havana syndrome.” And he highlights, looking at Amanda Sanford’s eldest son (Julia) with a bloody mouth: “There were people there who also lost their teeth. Other than that, the only thing I know is that not much information is circulating.â€
The premiere, as almost always, has received mixed opinions. The reviews in most cases highlight the quality of the script and the performances, and perhaps miss a better dosage of cinematographic resources such as sound, in order to create more tension. In any case, we will have to see it, so that then, and as the Cuban journalist Reinaldo Taladrid said, “you draw your own conclusions.”