Note: Spoilers and biases follow.
“If the world falls apart, trust should not be doled out easily to anyone, especially white people.” That, my friends, is a line from one of two Black characters in this incredibly disturbing anti-American, anti-White thriller. Some might call it “dystopian,” but “dystopian” implies fiction or imagined. There is nothing fictional about this movie; even the zombie-like deer that randomly haunt the backyard look like victims of chronic wasting disease. The entitled White family with a beta, feminist-punk-rock-band t-shirt-wearing father – believable. The cyberattack from either the Russians or Chinese or Iranians – probably imminent. The next-door neighbor’s decked-out underground bunker named after the Roman Emperor, Commodus – those exist. The hick doomsday prepper, guarding his stockpiles of food and medicine with a shotgun and gasoline – amusingly accurate.
But those are the obvious things. The subliminal messaging, the hidden innuendos, and agenda-driven cinematography demand a second viewing. Not because the movie is so artistically original and remarkably well-done that it left me hungry for more. Quite the opposite. I wanted all 2 ½ hours of the painful propaganda to end. But the ending was worse than a cliffhanger to a nightmare. Did America go to war? Did the family find their lost daughter? Did Archie get a new set of teeth? Not one twist ever led to a turn. It just ended. Well, I guess Rose did finally get to see the final episode of Friends, fittingly titled, “The Last One.”
If you have not watched this apocalyptic thriller, maybe this all sounds jumbled and strange. You will not feel any differently while watching it. It took me a night of sleep to realize why nearly every camera angle is awkwardly off-centered. The characters are practically irrelevant, skin color and all; instead, the directors move our attention to the art on the wall, the books and products on the shelves, the numbers on the clocks, and the characters’ clothing brands. I am cynical about conspiracies; I don’t like dealing in hypotheticals. But when I learned that the Obamas are the executive directors of this painfully slow movie, I could not help but think they purposefully designed it to be this way. What is the overall message? Why release it now? And what’s up with all the Hunter Biden-esque abstract art in every scene? As part of the Obama’s Higher Ground production company, Barak offered feedback on the script, editing and contributing details that even co-writer, Sam Esmail, found alarming. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Esmail said:
I am writing what I think is fiction, for the most part, I’m trying to keep it as true to life as possible, but I’m exaggerating and dramatizing. And to hear an ex-president say you’re off by a few details…I thought I was off by a lot! The fact that he said that scared the fuck out of me 1.
Why did it scare him? Did Obama confirm his cyberattack prediction? Is the unnamed foreign enemy’s three-pronged approach to dismantling America actually underway? Are Teslas running amok and blocking highways possible if the grid collapses? Musk does not think so, claiming that “Teslas can charge from solar panels even if the world goes fully Mad Max and there is no more gasoline 2.” Then those of us that live in Michigan are screwed. If Barak, a former eight-year-president with abundant knowledge on foreign and domestic affairs, is the executive director of a movie depicting the end of America, then the details matter. It matters that he would choose to attach his name to something like this and not a heartwarming biographical film on Rev. Jeremiah Wright or George Floyd or his supposed homosexual lover, Larry Sinclair. So then, what is the purpose of a movie adapted from the book by the same name, written by a homosexual African American man named, Rumaan Alam? What is the purpose of all those strange paintings made by Obama’s favorite homosexual African American artist named, Glenn Ligon?
One synopsis reads as follows:
Amanda (Julia Roberts) and Clay's (Ethan Hawke) aspirational vacation with their teenage children is interrupted by the arrival of a middle-aged man and his daughter who own the holiday home and who have fled an unprecedented blackout in the city. When the internet, television and radio stop working, as does the landline, they have no way of finding out what is happening. As strange sonic booms shatter the peace of the countryside, and animals start to migrate in strange ways, the physical and mental health of the families begins to disintegrate. The renters are upscale and White; the owners are upscale and Black. The issues of race clash and become distractions to the more alarming things that are happening all around them 3.
The alarming things to me are not what concern the characters. Mad deer and an onslaught of flamingos in the backyard pool do not quite spell suspense like those freaky extraterrestrial creatures with an acute sense of hearing from A Quiet Place. So, rather than the obvious, I will begin here with what some will argue makes me sound like a nitpicky conspiratorial lunatic. But if occult imagery, which usually flies over my head, glared off the screen in the second watch through, then maybe there is a reason the directors put it there. For instance, in the first scene, Ethan Hawke lies in a bed surrounded by a coffee mug, an analog clock, and a digital clock that all reveal the number 6. Do with that what you will. Covering part of the digital clock is a container of face serum made by German doctor, Barbara Sturm, who creates “Vampire Facial” creams made of human blood 4. I included the Vanity Fair webpage for proof because I realize how ridiculous that sounds. Later, after the family enters their getaway house, a painting full of illuminati eyes hangs on the back wall in one of those off-centered film scenes. Shall I continue? The teenage son wears an Obey t-shirt with Andre the Giant’s face, made by street artist, Shepard Fairey, the same artist who made the image of Obama with the word “Hope” underneath.
The daughter wears a Nasa t-shirt. The real conspiracy theorists will eat that up. Lastly, just to really add fuel to this occultic inferno, the word Baal reads downward in the names of the four actors listed above the title of the movie.
But all of that could be coincidental.
It is impossible to miss the anti-American, anti-White imagery scattered through nearly every scene. For instance, the oil tanker that runs aground at the beginning of the movie is named White Lion, a nod to the English privateer, the White Lion, that sailed into Point Comfort, VA, with African slaves in the year 1619. Point Comfort, NY, is on the road sign at the beginning of the movie. Later, when Ethan Hawke is in his vehicle, the emergency broadcast system blares through the radio station channel – you guessed it – 1619. A green and red poster of the United States, called the United States of Attica, hangs on the wall above the downstairs bed. Created by African American artist, Faith Ringgold, the map memorializes “the [African American] men who died in 1971 at Attica prison for demonstrating against the conditions they faced as inmates 5.” It also notes all the Indigenous, slave, and immigrant uprisings along with other oppressive acts against people of color, and the American military imperialist violences around the world, like in Japan and Vietnam.
So, we have the occult, the anti-American and anti-White messaging, and the destruction of America through a three-prong attack from an unknown enemy. The formula is as follows: isolation through cutting communication, synchronized chaos through misinformation, and total collapse from internal war. First, WIFI and data connections fail, which is supposedly why Tesla’s autopilot feature malfunctions and sends the vehicles from the dealership to a destructive mess on the main road. Is it just another coincidence that Tesla recalled 2 million vehicles yesterday over issues with autopilot 6? I am sure Obama loves that Elon bought Twitter, too.
With no ability to communicate, chaos inevitably follows. In one scene, a drone drops millions of red flyers written in Arabic, the front of which says “Death to America.” But Kevin Bacon’s character, the gun-wielding doomsday prepper, says that on the other side of the country, flyers written in Chinese and Russian fall from the sky. Bacon claims the Koreans are to blame, or the Chinese, or all of them. Finally, in several scenes, ear splitting sonic bullets radiate focused beams of sound that cripples the characters, dropping them to their knees in terror and agony. Who is sending those beams? Who is controlling the drones? Is there actually a foreign enemy?
Like with Bird Box’s unknown global terror that wipes out human civilization and sends the remaining few into chaos, civilians begin to turn on each other, the sought-after outcome if the first two attacks go accordingly. At first, racism divides the two main families in this film, but through some awkward sexual tension – as you do when the world if falling apart – they all seem to reconcile. G.H. Scott, the Black homeowner, helps the White family’s son find medicine when his teeth mysteriously fall out. Was it radiation from the horrendous noise that caused this or the mysterious bug that bit him towards the beginning of the movie?
G.H.’s lines are the most intriguing to me. He spends much of the movie describing a mysterious, wealthy, high ranking defense contractor who takes hush-hush, top-secret money from the Pentagon and who seems well aware of what causes the world to spin into chaos. With an occasional sense of humor, this contractor once told G.H. that he was leaving to meet up with the rest of the “evil cabal that runs the world,” at which point I literally laughed out loud. So, you are telling me all those damn QAnon rantings found their way into the painfully evasive movie about the end of America? Also, why name your character G.H. Scott? What does G.H. stand for? Who is this unnamed defense contractor? But it gets better. Amanda (Julia Roberts) questions G.H.: “Are you thinking that your friend is somehow behind what’s happening here?” G.H. becomes very serious. He grabs Amanda’s arm and responds: “A conspiracy theory about a shadowy group of people running the world is far too lazy of an explanation. Especially when the truth is much scarier.”
“What is the truth?” Amanda asks.
“No one is in control. No one is pulling the strings.”
Well, there you have it. So, for all of you cynical, conspiratorial musers, let it go. There is no cabal. There is no conglomerate of wealthy higher-ups that sleep in a bed of cash to protect them from what the rest of us peasants will suffer at their selfish expense. Oh, did I mention that Obama is the executive director of this “truthful” film?
So, what are we left with? What are the big takeaways? First, it seems America is primed for war, but an unconventional one, a war fought with ones and zeros and because of egotistical activists and fragile men. Too many of us are like Ethan Hawke’s character who turns feral and says, “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.” Second, American freedom is a façade, a lost idea, a word to which we cling and at which the elitists laugh. We have our souls; we have our principles. Beyond that, we do not even own the land we spent years acquiring. Third, own a DVD or VHS player. If communication ceases, at least you will have some amusement, assuming you still have electricity. Maybe buy the hardcopy versions of The Lone Gunmen that forewarned us about 9/11, or Contagion and V for Vandetta that prepared us for Covid, or White Noise that detailed the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. It’s like they are saying, “Hey, don’t say we didn’t warn you.” And when they happen, we go, “Didn’t I see this before?”
There is so much more to this movie that I missed. Watch it for yourselves and share what you discover. If you want to make good use of your day, pause the movie at the seemingly pixilated image of the United States map during the emergency broadcast announcement, about 34 minutes in. Within the CNN map is a QR code inside Kentucky. I cannot get my phone to scan the image. But according to Google, it supposedly takes you to the webpage for Lake Shawnee’s Abandoned Amusement Park in West Virginia, a haunted attraction claimed to be a Native American burial ground that holds secrets of violent deaths and freak accidents. It is one of the Travel Channel’s “Most Terrifying Places in America 7.” I do not trust Google. I do not believe that is what the QR code says. Why? Two reasons: first, Lake Shawnee is in West Virginia and the code is in Kentucky; second, the QR code in the teaser trailer is different than the one in the final movie. Go see for yourself. If you get it to scan, tell me what you find!
I will leave you with these haunting words a wise man once told me:
The difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth is nine months.
1 Obama Gave Netflix Film Notes, ‘Scared the F-ck' Out of Director (rollingstone.com)
2 Obamas Score a Hit With Netflix Film ‘Leave the World Behind’ - Bloomberg
3 Leave the World Behind (2023) - Plot - IMDb
4 Meet Dr. Barbara Sturm, the Brain Behind the Vampire Facial Craze | Vanity Fair
5 United States of Attica, 1972 – Faith Ringgold
6 Tesla recalls over 2m vehicles to fix defective system that monitors drivers - ABC News (go.com)
7 Lake Shawnee Abandoned Amusement Park - Mercer County WV : Mercer County WV (visitmercercounty.com)
I have not seen the movie, but I felt like this synopsis is accurate and prescient. The movie seems like more predictive programming at its finest. But, it doesn't bother me in the least because of one truth that the schemers don't respect. That is... the Sovereignty of God!