Leave the World Behind and other things

The reason I'm writing about the new film, Leave the World Behind, based on a novel by Rumaan Alam, is because no one's said what I said right after watching the movie: it's liberal propaganda, and shockingly shallow, even for a satire. It makes me wonder if the book is similar to the movie. The characters feel more like pawns being moved around a stage than human's living out any real existence. Each scene feels like an "idea" and each character in each scene meant to represent some ideological (whether that be class, race, or gender) concept. In other words: it felt like the most contrived and artificial viewing experience I'd had for some time. I'm really curious to see if the book feels the same way. I could give away some spoilers (though I'm mostly talking to myself here), but I don't see a reason. Suffice it to say: the white man interjects seemingly on the black man's behalf during the standoff with the true conservative racist (the upper middle class liberals weren't "true" racists, just accidentally, ideologically blindly so), and the white woman interjects on the black woman's behalf during the standoff with the true deer racists (just kidding, the deer aren't racist, they're just dumb (although, the scene with the deer all staring at the characters as though they're going to ingest their souls is most I've laughed at a movie in a long time)). 

I suppose this is the problem with satire, and with not really letting characters be people, but instead forcing them into stereotypical containers (white woman, afraid of black visitors (they're not really visitors, they own the airbnb, like, it's their house, but wait, they're black, so maybe not! Be worried, Julia!); black visitors, suspicious and subservient in presence of these condescending upper middle class whites, etc) all so that, later on, over drinks, these stereotypes can be overturned and white woman can apologize, white man can confess, while black people, they can see that the white people, deep down, are people, and not condescending racists or whatever. Class is in there too, as a way to mix things up. Look: the intentions are lovely. If this was a townhall meeting, some of these tropes might be helpful (Jeb, calm down, everyone have a drink, we're just people here). But in a film, it all felt too preposterously artificial. When Julia Roberts complains about these visitors being in "my house" even though, obviously, it's their house, it felt like the script-writers were trying to make something compelling for a sixteen-year-old - my god, white people are so oblivious! 

What's this have to do with anything? Not much, but here are some films and books I did enjoy this year, though not necessarily from 2023: 

Films:

Past Lives

You Hurt My Feelings

Talk to Me

The Killer

Infinity Pool

Banshees of Inisherin 

The Stranger

Reality

Books:

The Second Body

The Undiscovered Self

Darkness Visible

Kudos

Something To Do With Paying Attention

Tremor

Denial 

Weather

Stella Maris 

The Hidden Life of Trees

Read and watched more than that, but those are the standouts.