Sam Esmail's latest feature, Leave the World Behind, made waves when it premiered at the AFI Fest late last month, and it seems like the film will find a niche audience when it releases in theatres later this month. 

Leave The World Behind, an adaptation of Rumaan Alam's bestselling 2020 novel of the same name, stars  Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, and  Farrah Mackenzie and Charlie Evans as their children, alongside Mahershala Ali and Myha'la.

Anyone who still needs convincing that we live in a fractured world may be startled by the futuristic nightmare drama

 Others might find something a bit stale in its portrait of racial suspicion and environmental catastrophe. Fine performances help to bolster a problematic picture written and directed by Sam Esmail, adapted from Rumaan Alam’s best-selling novel. 

The film will take its bow via Netflix in December, the streamer’s second release this year (after Rustin) that counts Barack and Michelle Obama among its executive producers.

The story starts with a New York family (Roberts, Hawke and their teenage children, Mackenzie and Evans) leaving the city for a vacation in a Long Island rental home that advertised with the line “Leave the world behind.” 

The house and the grounds are indeed enticing, and the nearby beach seems like just the tonic that the stressed family needs. But matters quickly turn ominous when the young daughter (Mackenzie), who seems to be the most perceptive of the four of them, notices a giant oil tanker that seems to be moving a little too close to the swimmers and sunbathers.

Esmail, probably best known for writing and directing the TV series Mr. Robot, and who worked with Roberts on Amazon’s Homecoming, has studied a number of earlier movies. 

The scene on the beach serves up a variation on Jaws, with the tanker substituting for the shark. The picture also echoes Get Out, with its nightmarish vision of conflict between the races. 

The family is surprised in the evening by a knock at the door. Seeing a Black man and his adult daughter (Mahershala Ali and Myha’la) outside, Roberts’ Amanda barely tries to conceal her suspicion. 

The interlopers inform the white couple that they own the vacation house and fled their New York apartment because of a blackout in the city. Power is still working in the country, but television and cellphone service have been disrupted. Gradually, more nightmarish events unfold.

Hawke’s Clay initially seems more open-minded than his wife, but he reveals his prejudice when, on a drive into town, he’s approached by a frightened Latina who begs for his help and he responds by locking his car doors and speeding away.

As a nightmarish suspense drama about everyday life disintegrating, Esmail’s movie is sometimes effective, even while it echoes earlier films like The Road and David Koepp’s underrated 1996 thriller, The Trigger Effect. 

Esmail uses encroaching animals – a sinister herd of deer, a flock of flamingoes – with skill. A scene involving a crashing phalanx of empty Teslas is striking, and there’s a creepy scene in which teenage son Archie (Evans) finds his teeth falling out.

Technically the feature is extremely well crafted, with striking widescreen cinematography by Tod Campbell and expert production design – a mixture of elegance and decay – by Anastasia White. 

However, the overbearing score by Mac Quayle, who may be best known for his work on American Horror Story, too often crushes any subtlety that might have existed in the script. You come away depressed but not entirely convinced by this film’s dire warnings about the disintegration of a divided America.