Like most movie adaptations of books, Sam Esmail made a few major changes to Rumaan Alam’s novel. These can be relatively minor, for example, in the novel, Ruth is George’s wife. In the movie, Ruth’s George’s daughter. You can make a change like that without it having a huge impact on the story or themes. But then you have changes that cause a totally new, and different, interpretation of the story. That’s what happened with Leave the World Behind.
So what was Sam Esmail saying by having Rose sit down to watch an episode of Friends?
Leave the World Behind’s movie ending and how it differs from the novel
Both the film and novel versions of Leave the World Behind end with the characters broken up into various groups. You have Amanda and Ruth together. G.H., Clay, and Archie together. And then Rose is off on her own.
Amanda and Ruth
In the novel, Ruth is Amanda’s peer, a fellow wife and mother. They still don’t get along. And part of that is Amanda being a jerk the whole time, but also because Ruth’s daughter, Maya, is off in Boston. So there’s resentment in the fact that Amanda has a united family. Once Rose disappears, the two have something in common, even if its temporary. And that’s ultimately what they bond over, as they search the house for Rose.
For Ruth, we get this description: Ruth wanted to sleep in her own bed. But she wanted these people to say.
And for Amanda, it’s: This woman was not a stranger at all; she was their salvation.
And then you get the metaphor of it all: Ruth could not make peace with whatever was required. She wanted to know that her child and her grandchildren were safe, but of course, Ruth would never know that. You never know that. You demanded answers, but the universe refused. Comfort and safety were just an illusion. Money meant nothing. All that meant anything was this—people, in the same place, together. This was what was left to them.
As much as Leave the World Behind is about the beginning of this dystopian future, some things are universal. Once a child goes off on their own, parents will always worry, because they’ll never know if the kid is safe. That’s true in the dystopian situation of the novel but also right now, in the world as we know it. A car crash can happen anywhere, any time. Sickness. Slipping in the shower. Choking at dinner. It doesn’t have to be the end of the world for that fear of “are they okay” to be there.
But in the movie, Ruth and Amanda are not peers. Ruth is in her twenties and it’s her mom who is missing. Despite the change, the tension is the same. Amanda is still a jerk but Ruth is also upset that Amanda’s there and not her own mom. So there’s resentment for this “other” mother. While they go out looking for Rose together, that’s not what bonds them. What bonds them is where the deer approach Ruth and it becomes increasingly threatening. As the buck rolls up and seems like it might impale Ruth on its horns, Amanda bursts into the frame, screaming at the top of her lungs.
In that moment, Amanda protects Ruth the way she would her own daughter. And Ruth feels protected by a mother, even if it’s not her own. When the two hug, after the deer leave, it’s cathartic. And hopeful. That in this new world, as scary and bizarre as it will be, people will still need to rely on one another, can still bond, can form new groups, a new family, even. Which is what the novel conveyed when Ruth decided she wanted “these people to stay” and when Amanda realized Ruth was “their salvation”.
What about the deer?
The meaning of the deer isn’t going to be very satisfying. Esmail said this in an interview with Collider:
Esmail: This is what I would say, in general, about the film: a film works as a feeling, as a tone. It’s not meant for it to be like an essay where every plot point is annotated with logic and references. It’s meant to be kind of a hallucination that you subscribe to, and the deer are just kind of an extension of that. It’s meant to add a tone. They’re representing the ominous warning from nature to us that something’s off and we’re not listening. That’s really all I wanna say about it, and honestly all I wanna say about a lot of the ambiguities in the film. I think I said this to you the night we did the screening, I wanted this film to feel like a dream that slowly turns into a nightmare. I was committed to that. That’s the experience that I was committed to giving the audience, and nothing for me ever got in the way of that. So whenever people are trying to piece together the film in a purely detached, logical way, I think that doesn’t work, and honestly, I don’t think it works with most films. I think a film has to be felt and experienced, and not necessarily thought through in that way.
I’m going to take my film critic hat off and put on my novelist hat. I have some issues with this. I get what Esmail means in that vibe is a major consideration and that not everything in a story has to be literal or grounded. Like in the TV show The Curse, the end had a character become weightless and float off into outer space. It didn’t necessarily make sense logically, since the show had been very realistic. But it makes sense as it captures the feeling/tone/vibe of the character’s fate. A more grounded version of events is the character’s significant other divorces them and they feel abandoned and don’t know what to do next so leave the limelight of being a TV celebrity and return to just being a random person in the world who is very sad, uncertain, and unremarkable. Instead, the terror of losing their significant other, losing their career, losing this life they had built, gets expressed in incurable weightlessness that goes from weird to terrifying to actually tragic.
What I’m saying is that The Curse earned turning a moment into a feeling. But I don’t think Esmail earns anything with the deer and flamingo in Leave the World Behind. Especially when you have multiple characters who speculate the animals are trying to tell them something. That’s a set-up for a conclusion we never really receive. The big buck that stares down Ruth, seems ready to gore Ruth, is a different vibe.
In the novel (I’m going to use that phrase so much), the final mention from the deer comes at the end of the chapter with G.H., Clay, and Archie. G.H. thinks: If they didn’t know how it would end—with night, with more terrible noise from the top of Olympus, with bombs, with disease, with blood, with happiness, with deer or something else watching them from the darkened woods—well, wasn’t that true of every day?
It’s the same thing we discussed regarding Amanda and Ruth. Quoting myself: As much as Leave the World Behind is about the beginning of this dystopian future, some things are universal. George realizes that they don’t know what will happen next regarding this potential war but that was already true. You never knew what would happen next in the world. One day, you could be happily employed for 20 years, the next the company could be bankrupt and you’re carrying a cardboard box full of stuff from your desk to your car.
Alam uses the deer as part of the scale. You go from “the top of Olympus”, a reference to the gods, or in this case, the governments, to bombs (technology), disease (health), blood (family), happiness (emotion), deer (nature) or something else watching them (unnatural).
In the novel, there’s a scene near the end where, late at night, G.H., Amanda, and Clay are in the hot tub that’s out on an upstairs deck. Below, they hear something splash in the pool. Everyone’s immediately afraid. Quote: There was a splash, a definitive, deliberate splash in the pool. Yards away, but it could not be seen. It was one of the children, sleepwalking to their drowning. It was a watcher from the woods come to kill them. It was a zombie, it was an animal, it was a monster, it was a ghost, it was an alien. It was the flamingo. So the animals come to exemplify this inherent fear of the unknown, of things we can’t explain.
You could argue that’s kind of how Esmail ultimately uses the deer. The buck’s approach is inexplicable and it does cause fear. A fear Amanda and Ruth banish together. I’m just not sure Esmail matches the set up with the payoff. Each is fine on its own, but together? A little muddied. For the record, in the novel, no one ever says anything about the animals trying to tell humans something.
G.H., Clay, and Archie
In the novel, the three guys also go to see Danny. And it’s also a stand off at the front porch. But a lot less dramatic. No one pulls a weapon. Danny is presented as more dashing and less of a conspiracy theorist than in the film (though he does mention checking the newspaper deeper than the first page). He is better supplied. And Clay asks him for help. But, ultimately, Danny refuses to offer any.
This: George felt foolish. Of course this was how Danny would be. All business. They were not friends, and even if they had been, these were extraordinary circumstances. It continues a few paragraphs later. G.H. had been foolish. People disappointed. He would do better. They would still be good, kind, human, decent, together, safe.
So the novel version of the scene sets up the dichotomy between how people behave when push comes to shove. G.H. and Danny had been friendly, but when it mattered, Danny chose to not extend any kind of aid, to set a strict boundary. G.H. doesn’t want to be that kind of person. So despite Clay being a relative stranger, not anyone he really owes anything to, G.H. makes a pledge to himself to still be good, kind, human, decent, together, safe.
Ruth and Amanda demonstrated putting differences aside. This scene is about choosing community over isolation. The final paragraph sums it up: Clay said it. “I want to go home. Can we go home? Let’s go home. It’s not far. We’re so close. Let’s go.” He meant George’s house, of course, and so they went, were back well before the alarm on Ruth’s phone told them that it had been an hour. Less than an hour, and everything was changed.
What had been the home of one family is now the home of two.
In the film, It’s a bit different. Danny does, initially, refuse to help. And G.H. is motivated to be a person who helps rather than abandons, but he helps by drawing a gun and threatening Danny. Novel Clay only stutters and contributes nothing. But Film Clay does better. He makes the humanistic appeal that overcomes the potential violence and isolation.
Quote: I’m trying to reason with him! Drive away to what? All the roads are blocked. We’re in the middle of God-knows-where. There’s no one else around. I have no idea what I am supposed to do right now. I can barely do anything without my cell phone and my GPS. I am a useless man. But my son is sick. And my daughter is missing. And I don’t know what to do. But you are a very prepared man. That’s right, that’s why we came to you, because you’re the only one who can help my son. [Not my problem.] No, you’re right. It’s not. But it’s like you said, right? What would you do if it was your family? That’s what I’m doing. It’s the only thing I can do. I am begging you. Please. Please help my son.
When we cut back from Amanda and Ruth, we see Danny count a bunch of cash then Clay hands medicine to Archie. Danny says, “I guess an old-fashioned barter system was to be expected at some point.”
The novel uses the scene to comment on social bonds. The film makes it more about masculinity and economy. If people won’t do things for social reasons, there’s usually an economic answer. And then there’s some hope for Archie that the pills will counteract whatever wave of radiation had hit him. You imagine that, at some point, they’ll find a dentist? But, if not, it seems like Archie’s at least through the worst of it.
The movie also tries to provide more context to what happened. You don’t get all the “It was Korea and China” in the novel. But, Film Danny offers the “We made a lot of enemies around the world. Maybe all this means is a few of them teamed up.” While that seems innocuous, it’s the subtext of what we just saw between the three men. They all have different motivations, but they manage to find a middle ground that allows them to work together. Team up, so to speak. It goes back to this theme of what mistrust leads to versus what trust leads to.
Rose and Friends
Honestly, this is what I’m most excited to talk about. In the novel, Rose does “go missing” and ends up at a nearby house, rummaging for supplies. She went to the den and switched on the television. The screen was blue. Rose opened the cabinet beneath it and found the PlayStation, the dozens of plastic boxes holding the various games, and dozens of DVDs. They didn’t have a player at their house, but there was one in the classroom, and she was not stupid. She decided on Friends; they had the whole box set. It was the episode where Ross fantasized about Princess Leia. The sound of the television made her feel so much better. She turned the volume loud to keep her company as she ransacked.
There is no bunker. In fact, the novel has the overall implication that it’s unlikely the two families survive long. It’s pretty bleak. Though it does give Rose a sense of instinctual survival and connection to ancestral skills and perception that implies the next generation will have a better chance than everyone older than Rose. Rose’s last scene is a bit of an oasis, a little last slice of what was, before the world forces her and everyone else into what’s next, before that world is left behind.
But Esmail decided to make Friends and Rose’s relationship with the show a subplot that spans the entire film. She doesn’t just find the DVD to watch the finale but finds an entire survival bunker that’s fully stocked and large enough for the Sandfords and the Scotts. It’s a much more positive scenario than the book, as you imagine the two families will head into the bunker and be able to survive the worst of what’s to come. That’s nice for them.
But the bigger statement is the role of entertainment. Rose doesn’t immediately go back and get everyone. Instead, she prioritizes putting in the Friends DVD so she can finally watch the finale. She goes from reading a message on an emergency system— “EMERGENCY ALERT. WHITE HOUSE AND MAJOR CITIES UNDER ATTACK BY ROGUE ARMED FORCES. ELEVATED RADIATION LEVELS DETECTED NEAR MULTIPLE POPULATION CENTERS. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER—to sitting down to a piece of entertainment that distracts her from the world, that allows her to, for a brief time, leave the world behind.
The same way we talked about the novel using things happening in the story as metaphors for our present-day life, the same thing happens here in the movie. Viewers are Rose. The same way she’s watching a show as the rest of the world is going to hell, we’re watching Leave the World Behind while a lot of things in society go to hell.
So Esmail takes the time to make a really powerful statement about the role of art, the role of entertainment, in society. The hope it brings. The comfort it brings. When people think of what’s needed after an apocalypse, they default to food, water, shelter, of course. But the power of stories, characters, entertainment, narrative, shouldn’t be forgotten. It allows us to relax. To disconnect from the terror, for just a little bit, and that can be such a wonderful, comforting thing.
Cast
- Amanda Sandford – Julia Roberts
- Clay – Ethan Hawke
- Archie – Charlie Evans
- Rose – Farrah Mackenzie
- G.H. Scott – Mahershala Ali
- Ruth – Myha’la
- Danny – Kevin Bacon
- Salvadora – Vanessa Aspillaga
- Based on – Rumaan Alam’s novel Leave the World Behind
- Written by – Sam Esmail
- Directed by – Sam Esmail
