If you've watched the new Netflix thriller Leave The World Behind, you'll know that the two-and-a-half hour slow-burner doesn't end on a distinct resolution. The fate of the world is left in an ambiguous state, but we'll help you to understand the ending.
Leave The World Behind focuses on a family staying in a rental house, as the world begins to fall apart after blackouts and infrastructures breaking, and to top it all off the man they're renting from wants to stay in the property with his daughter.
Starring Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke and Mahershala Ali, it's an atmospheric and engrossing drama, but after watching it you could end up with quite a few questions. So let's run through some of the main things you might be wondering.
Spoilers for Leave The World Behind follow.
Why did the world end?
In the last few minutes of the movie we find out exactly what's going on in the world. We see a computer screen in a bunker that explains that "rogue armed forces" are attacking major cities, which tells us that lots of the occurrences (like the internet not working, blackouts happening and bombs going off) are all part of an attack on the US.
In a previous scene, George (Mahershala Ali) speculated on why this was happening, though he's just guessing at that point. He thinks it's part of a three-stage plan that can be used to topple any country.
The first stage of this plan is isolation, in which hostiles cut off a country. The second is chaos, which makes a country turn on itself. The final stage is a coup d'etat or civil war, which he thinks will follow.
Who attacked the US?
It's not actually one country attacking the US, but multiple. Clay (Ethan Hawke) finds fliers in Arabic, but doomsday prepper Danny (Kevin Bacon) says that another city had similar flies in either Korean or China.
Danny gives us our best guess at what's happening: multiple of the US' enemies have decided to team up to attack the country. This is never specifically confirmed, but according to George, the point is to get America to destroy itself anyway.
However there's a reason to believe he's wrong. When George is laying out the three-step plan that we mentioned in the last question, he talks about misinformation. As he does, we see a flashback to Clay examining the flier. This suggests that perhaps the mixed messages on who's attacking is an intentional ruse to confuse people.
What was Archie ill with?
A big shock comes for Archie (Charlie Evans) when his teeth start dropping out... and we never actually find out why.
Archie thinks that it's the fault of the tick that bit him the day before, but his symptoms don't match, and they wouldn't manifest so quickly anyway.
Danny thinks that Archie is just particularly sensitive to whatever the loud screeching noise is that keeps starting and stopping, which is our best guess. He sells Clay some pills for $1,000, but we're never told what they actually are.
Where did the noise come from?
The loud screeching noise that keeps cropping up is an important part of Leave The World Behind, so much so that one of the acts is named after it. It's part of the attack on the US, to disorient and upset people. But what is it?
This is never explained, not that it needs to be. Danny thinks that it's a microwave weapon and thinks that it's been used in Cuba before, but he's shown to be a bit of a conspiracy theorist, so his views are a little dubious.
If you're wondering what could cause such a noise in real life, there's a phenomenon called a skyquake which is when loud booming noises come from the sky. Scientists don't actually know what causes these, but they've been reported for hundreds of years!
Where did Rose go?
Towards the end of the movie, Rose (Farrah Mackenzie) vanishes. It causes Amanda (Julia Roberts) and Ruth (Myha'la) to venture into the woods to search for her.
She's not actually in any trouble though. She's actually just wandered into the holiday house that's near the woods, and made herself at home too! She's raided the pantry for junk food and cola, and then proceeds to find the secret bunker which is well kitted out. The final thing we see in the movie is her finally finding a way to watch the Friends finale that she's been desperate to watch for their whole trip.
What was up with the animals?
One of the odd occurrences that happened during the movie was the weird behavior of animals. Deer start massing following people in the family, and a load of flamingoes move into the house swimming pool.
So why is this, is this part of the plot against the US? Well, it seems unlikely that terrorists would train stags to stalk people, there are more effective ways to take down the US. However, Ruth has a theory.
She tells Amanda that the animals "are trying to warn us" and that "they know something that we don't".
What happens to all the characters?
The movie ends quite abruptly, and we never find out the fate of Amanda, Clay, George, Ruth and the kids. They're just going to have to survive in a world that's falling apart.
George tells Clay and Archie that they're going to have to hide in the bunker, though, so that'd be their next step.
What was the movie actually about?
This is open to interpretation, but it seems to us that director and writer Sam Esmail is trying to criticize the state of the world, and of the US and its people.
Danny says that the country has antagonized enough of the world that everyone wants to attack it, hence the alliance to attack the country.
Plus, several of the characters, particularly Clay, are shown to be too dependent on tech. He himself says in a particularly earnest moment near the end "I can barely do anything without my cell phone" and "I am a useless man".
It's also worth noting loads of small details, like the Sandford family's decision to get over the trauma of the boat crash by popping to Starbucks, or Amanda's reliance on the booking app's terms and conditions to navigate her first meeting with George, that all seem to comment on the way modern people rely on the wrong things.
