I’ve been meaning to watch Netflix’s Leave The World Behind for awhile but, to be honest, the 2 1/2 hour runtime kept putting me off. I am very tired of these really long movies. But I finally did it. I finally sat down and watched it.

Tired of work and life in general, Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) decides to take her family on an impromptu weekend vacation. So she packs up husband Clay (Ethan Hawke) and children Archie (Charlie Evans) and Rose (Farrah Mackenzie) and heads to out of New York City. Strange things start to happen after an oil tanker runs aground while they visited the beach. That night, the owner of the AirBNB, George (Mahershala Ali), and his daughter, Ruth (Myha’la), show up wanting to stay at the house with the Sandford family. Amanda, who doesn’t like people very much, is weirded out but Clay agrees they can stay. Soon after, all of their cell phones stop working, along with the television and the internet. The two families try their best to stay calm and figure out exactly what is happening.

Did I mention this movie is long? It is so long. And for a lot of it, nothing really happens. It’s a lot of things not working the way they are supposed to, then Amanda gets suspicious of everyone, then Clay tries to talk her out of insanity, and the kids just exist. Yes, it is just as tedious as it sounds. We sometimes get little hints about what is going on but if you aren’t paying super close attention to details, it is easy to miss. Especially when we’re talking about a 2 1/2 hour movie with very little happening on-screen. I’m glad I finally crossed this movie off my list of things to watch. But that doesn’t mean I’m glad I watched it.

Rating: D+