The World After Us on Netflix: Why Is It Obsessed With Friends?

Warning spoilers! This article will outline the main plot elements of The World After Us. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to know what it contains, read no further.

What if television was the new security blanket? It’s a bit like The World After Us, Sam Esmail’s dystopian thriller that’s currently a hit on Netflix. The youngest of the Sandford family, Rose (Fara McKenzie), doesn’t really care about the collapse that’s happening across the United States, causing her parents, played by Julia Roberts, and Ethan Hawke, to panic.

Based on Rumaan Alam’s novel, the film shows that the country is the victim of a colossal cyber-attack: all communications are cut off, including the Internet connection, causing complete panic.

The focus is on two families brought together by these extraordinary circumstances. And it is from their point of view that we will see what is happening. For the first time, we see an oil tanker heading straight for the beach, animals acting strange, Teslas with driverless autopilots crashing into each other, and leaflets in different languages ​​falling from the sky…

And despite all this, Rose has only one thing on her mind… watching the finale of Friends!

A teenager has been watching the series for weeks and there is only one episode left. Unfortunately, there is no wifi or network to allow him to watch the series in streaming.

“I’ll never know what happened to Ross and Rachel, will I?“Rose complains to her brother Archie (Charlie Evans). He asks her, confused by her TV obsession: “Anyway, what is important to you in this series?“

“They make me happy. I really need it now, don’t I?– he answers.If there’s any hope left in this crappy world, I still want to know how things are going for them. I take care of them.“

In a world where almost everything is viewed through a screen, the boundaries between reality and fiction are increasingly blurred. For Rose, at that moment, friends are as real as the end of the world. Ross and Rachel’s happy ending is as heartbreaking as the potential civil war.

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For kids these days, weighed down by an inescapable sense of future hopelessness, media has become less of an innocent escape than an alternative place to exist in the Matrix.

At one point, Ruth Scott (Myha’la) comments on Rose’s obsession with her friends: “It’s almost nostalgic for a time that never was.”

There’s a term for this: anemoia, or nostalgia for an era we haven’t experienced, for a simpler time we blindly idealize to make sense of our current discontent. It is a tool for the internal struggle against anxiety, loneliness and existential anxiety, but which too often distances us from reality.

While the older ones try to find answers and solutions, the younger ones have completely given up on the world, Rose is obsessed with the soap opera, and Archie is misbehaving by the pool. And, in any case, they are used to the disaster scenario.

Although the film ends with Rose watching the finale of Friends – to real comedic effect – the end of the film is actually quite dark. At first, Rose’s mother, Amanda (Julia Roberts), claims to hate people. He quickly plans a relaxing weekend out of town, hoping he won’t be bothered.

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However, as society crumbles, Amanda breaks out of her stereotypical angry middle-aged white woman persona and discovers her humanity, even going so far as to risk her own life to save Ruth from a dangerous herd of deer.

On the other hand, there’s Rose, who seems like a lovable kid but ultimately prefers to leave her family rather than leave her beloved series indefinitely. Before making the choice, the TV-obsessed kid tells his mom he can’t stop thinking about the White House episode.

He remembers a story someone told the president about how a man of faith died in a flood because he refused all help and thought God would save him in the end. He did not realize that the people who tried to help him were “sent” by God.

“I think I’m tired of waitingRose said later.

Definition of director

Rose is tired of waiting for a divine hand to get them out of this mess. If the world is going to collapse, we might as well end this damn streak. And that’s what he does. In her neighbor’s empty house, Rose discovers a luxury bunker for survival in the event of the apocalypse, big enough to house her family and the Scots.

There he finds a huge shelf with hundreds of DVDs, quite vintage, from all seasons of Gilmore Girls to movies like Bridget Jones and the Die Hard saga. Rose quickly grabs the box set for the final season of Friends. His smile widens as the opening credits of “I’ll Be There For You” play.

He finally finds out what’s going on with Ross and Rachel! He might go with his family later if the bomb hasn’t destroyed him yet, but for now he’s in pop culture heaven.

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“For me it was pure and simple escapism“- said director Sam Esmail Tudum To explain the ending of the movie. “In times of crisis, when we lose sight of our common humanity, when we feel isolated, we want to hide in comfort. And for Rose, I thought her trip wouldn’t end until she watched the latest episode of her favorite TV series.“.

“I think this movie is a cautionary tale, that it shouldn’t give us an answer to the question of what to do next, but rather it should say, “No matter how dark, no matter how dark, we can always try to find hope.”“.

If there’s one lesson we can learn from this story of roses with friends: stock up on DVDs in case the world ends.