While planning a last minute vacation, Clay (Ethan Hawke) and Amanda (Julia Roberts) are tasked with tackling an unheard-of decision as the world seemingly feels like it’s slowly ending.
Warning: Spoilers
The movie follows a family as they head to Long Island on a surprise vacation in hopes to find comfort in a weekend get-away. Suddenly, during their first night, Clay and Amanda are struck with fear when they hear a slight noise outside their beautiful get-away home. Scared, as anyone would be at midnight on vacation in small town Jersey, Clay bravely answers the door and is met face to face with G.H (Mahershala Ali), and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la Herrold).
Next, G.H explains to the couple that the house they are cooped up in actually belongs to them, they just rent it out while they aren’t there. Clay unexpectedly invited the two inside to chat a little more, and get a better understanding of what they were talking about. G.H then states that while he and his daughter were at the symphony in the city, there was a blackout, and no phone signals would work. The two exclaimed they rushed out and headed there because it was the only place they knew that felt safe outside of the city. Clay, seemingly understood the two’s worrying, while Amanda did not at all. Amanda explained to her husband that she didn’t feel comfortable allowing them to sleep there with her children in the house with no proof of them actually living there. But in the end, the two decided to let them stay. G.H and Ruth slept down in the basement, while the family stayed on the third floor. At this point, no phones worked, as well as TV because there was absolutely zero service.
The film had me completely hooked with the idea of a great plot. I had zero idea what was to come next. Would the family who actually owned the house kick them out? Would there be violence? I genuinely had no idea. Another creepy twist to it all, was the Obama family were the main producers of the movie evidently giving audiences the idea that all of this could very well happen in modern America.
The next morning, Amanda woke up to a few notifications on her phone. While this is normal to most people, the messages read “America has been taken over by hackers,” and complete gibberish on the other. When she tried to show Clay, it was gone. Clay calmly told her she would head to the city in hopes to find out what had happened to the service, and hopefully get the answers they had been looking for.
At this point everyone in the home had woken up, G.H explained to everyone he was headed to a close by neighbor to check if he could find any information, and Clay would head to the city. While on the way to the city, Clay was horrifyingly showered in red notes from a drone flying over, which was debunked to read “Death to America” in a different language. On the other hand, G.H got the horrifying view of multiple plane crashes in the same spot.
The film compiled a lot of confusing information into it yet it was still so good, they explained the three-step process to crumple the American government throwing out complete chaos in the entire world. I personally felt almost scared while watching, there was bone-chilling music, along with just creepy scenes. From camera angles, to sound, to acting, this movie was trending towards a great showing.
After this all happened, everyone realized something was very, very wrong. There were horrifying scenes of a bunch of deer just staring, and when I say a bunch, I mean hundreds of deer. This was completely unexplainable, and just flat out creepy.
Later, everyone happened to split up, Clay and Amanda’s son Archie (Charlie Evans), got dangerously sick. His teeth were just falling out with no explanation. G.H and Clay took him to another friend’s house who was hopefully more prepared than them. On the other side of the stick, Amanda and Ruth were tasked with tracking down Amanda’s daughter Rose (Farrah Mackenzie). Throughout the trip, Rose wouldn’t stop talking about how she couldn’t watch the last episode of Friends. Appropriately, Rose, being a 13-year-old wandered into a random rich home down the road, and discovered a secret bunker downstairs, she finds a massive TV, with everything to watch you could ask for. She found Friends, put it in the T.V, selected the final episode “The Ending” and that is where the movie stopped, after everything, that was the ending.
Overall, I loved this movie, but the main problem was the amount of unanswered questions, and poor ending. In my opinion, there could absolutely be a second movie, or even just anything to give us a few more answers. Subtracting the negatives, I did really enjoy everything that was packed in, and it sparked a thrill in my heart. 4/5
