Sam Esmail deciphers The World After Us and its strange ending
The director and screenwriter of the new Netflix event film analyzes for Première what lies behind his apocalyptic family chronicle.
After having captivated the whole world with his Mr Robot, Sam Esmail returns today with an equally fascinating film. The World After Us, which comes out this Friday on Netflix, talks about the apocalypse like never before. The director plunges his camera into the heart of a house where two families are forced to live together, while a gigantic blackout makes them fear the worst… But what should we understand behind all this?
Warning: major spoilers (read after watching the film)!
From the collapse of civilization to the hacking of technologies and the manipulation of communications, we find in this feature film themes that overlap with those of Mr Robot. So many obsessions assumed by Sam Esmailwho explains to Première to find above all “interesting to explore humanity in times of crisis.”
The screenwriter and creator sees in the fall of the world a perfect prism, which “tends to amplify the problems we have with each other. It’s very well told in this book by Rumaan Alam (on which the film is based). It clearly shows how easily we lose track of our most basic humanity. I read this novel during the pandemic and obviously, it spoke to me a lot… In the context of the period, it made perfect sense. But it’s still very relevant in today’s world, where we are so close to chaos all the time. When everything is collapsing around us, when we should stick together more than ever. However, this is where we divide and oppose each other. I find it fascinating.”
It is indeed the silent confrontation of the couple Julia Roberts And Ethan Hawke in front of Mahershala Ali and her daughter (Myha’la Herrold), heavy unsaid words in an increasingly distressing situation, which is the strength of World after us. There is no real villain. Characterized villains. This is not a Manichean vision of the end of the world.
And besides, at the end of the film, we don’t really know who is attacking the United States. Arab countries? North Korea ? Sam Esmail doesn’t say it and he tells us that it’s not important:
“It’s a question I’ve been asked a lot… But it’s never seemed crucial to me. If I take a country off the map and say it’s the bad guy in the film, what will it bring? Will it make a better story? No, for me, the fact of not knowing who is behind this attack is the truly monstrous thing of the film.”
Yes, there is indeed an attack in The World After Us. But the spectator, like Esmail’s characters, is kept in a form of ignorance: “The monster of the movie is that you need a straight answer and it’s not coming and it drives you crazy. It drives people crazy. That’s what makes the whole situation so tense in this house, between these two families. It was more interesting that way. The ambiguity seems to me to correspond more to reality. Because life is often confusing. We almost never have easy answers that explain the crises that punctuate our lives.”
So what should we understand from the ending?
Sam Esmail remained evasive. He confirms to us that New York is indeed exploding. This is not a dream or a metaphor, but the fall of America,”which collapses on itself. These bombs which explode at the end in New York are an image of society collapsing in on itself.”
The World After Us, by Sam Esmail, to watch on Netflix since December 8, 2023.
