The Switch

Henry Carter, a 13-year-old boy, lives with his parents on a 40-acre farm south of Portland, Oregon. The farm has belonged to his mother Marie Carter's family, the Ludds, for 72 years, and the extended family of over 150 people treats the property as a communal gathering place. Henry's father, Tom Carter, directs the Portland zoo. The morning after Henry's birthday, Tom invites him to the zoo to pick up a belated present, but Henry declines. Among his gifts are a smartphone, reluctantly approved by Marie, a former CEO who harbors a deep aversion to technology, and a leather journal she insists he fill with two pages a day.

While crossing the lower field, Henry experiences a sudden, silent flash accompanied by crackling static and dread. Moments later, a passenger jet glides up the valley with dead engines and crashes into the field. Henry's uncle Edgar, Marie's older brother and a retired army colonel who spent decades analyzing disaster scenarios, pulls him from the wreckage. The Ludds search for survivors but find only the dead, including their neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Olof and the couple's daughter Caroline, a girl a couple of years older than Henry whom he has always known.

Edgar reveals his theory: An electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, a burst of energy that destroys any device with a circuit board, has knocked out all electronics nationwide. He estimates roughly 5,000 jets were airborne, meaning approximately a million people died in crashes that morning. The survivors come to call this catastrophe "the switch." Edgar's 328-foot wind turbine survived because its electronics were stored in a Faraday locker, a shielded container that blocks electromagnetic energy. Henry climbs the turbine and confirms the disaster: The interstate is jammed with stalled cars, black smoke rises over Portland, and no sirens or helicopters break the silence. Tom has not returned from the zoo.

That evening, Marie takes charge of a family meeting. Edgar powers the houses from the turbine's batteries but insists they conceal their electricity, warning that people may try to seize the farm. His 1959 Cadillac and old flatbed truck still run because they predate electronic components. The next morning, Marie, Edgar, Henry, and Henry's uncle Stan drive to Portland. At the zoo, animals roam free after the Wild Bunch, an animal rights group, stormed the grounds on the morning of the switch and released them. Gary Dulabaum, the zoo's ungulate keeper, explains that Tom left to pursue Niki and Nuri, the zoo's Siberian tigers, into nearby Washington Park. In Tom's office, Henry finds a blue heeler puppy, his belated birthday present, and names the dog Gort after the robot in The Day the Earth Stood Still. They search the park but find no trace of Tom.

Edgar drives downtown to retrieve his friend Albert Gunderson, a former Marine recon sergeant barricaded inside his jewelry store with his nephew Derek, an ex-Army Ranger. Albert has been fending off looters, including a young man he calls "Pockets." Albert and Derek join the farm, bringing duffel bags of jewelry, gold, guns, and ammunition for future trade. During a tense extraction, one of Pockets's associates attacks, but Derek neutralizes the threat.

Back at the farm, Tom has still not returned. Henry collapses in a panic attack, and a voice says, "Get ahold of yourself, Bucko!" Only Caroline Olof ever used that phrase with him, and she is dead. Her voice has entered his head.

Four months later, the farm has become the Wonderland Compound, or WC. Henry's journal reveals that Caroline's voice has been intermittently present, offering sarcastic commentary and surprising insight. He tells no one and retreats daily to Caroline's old treehouse on the Olof property, his private sanctuary. The compound has grown: A doctor runs a clinic, an electrician maintains the turbine, and Derek gathers intelligence in Portland. Food is critically scarce. Chester, a lifelong freegan who subsists on discarded food, drives out daily with Gino, another uncle by marriage, to trade for supplies. Stan's Great Wall, a 12-foot barrier of stacked dead cars, encloses the valley. Edgar and Albert mint gold and silver coins called WC coin as currency, since US dollars are worthless.

Marie reluctantly allows Henry outside the compound for the first time, joining Chester and Gino on a supply run. The world is devastated: burned houses, garbage-choked streets, and desperate people bartering for necessities. At the zoo, Gary reveals that Robin, the Wild Bunch's ringleader, has been slaughtering zoo animals for food. While Henry helps Gary, Chester and Gino vanish with the semi truck. Henry finds evidence they were tranquilized and rides to downtown Portland to find Derek.

The city has become a bustling open-air market. Henry meets Sprint, a resourceful seven-year-old orphan whose real name is Jack Glaze, and Rebecca O'Toole, a girl a few years older than Henry who runs a water distribution point. Rebecca knows Derek by his alias "T-Rex" and leads Henry to the Willamette River waterfront, where they board the Osprey, a sailboat Derek uses as his base. Derek realizes that "Pockets" is Robin. Robin commands roughly 100 followers from a compound in Forest Park called the Rabbit Hole. Henry proposes sailing downriver to Forest Park, and Derek agrees.

Derek plans to scout alone, but Henry and Rebecca refuse to stay behind. Rebecca, who hopes that helping Henry might earn refuge in the compound for her and her grandfather, Dr. Brandon O'Toole, a Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist, proposes posing as recruits and walking through the front gate. Henry joins her under the alias Caleb Brown. Robin greets them: clean-shaven, neatly dressed, with glacial blue eyes. Inside, elderly residents confirm the barn is off-limits and guarded. Derek slips Henry a note confirming Gino and Chester are alive inside.

Robin summons Henry to his cabin, where a tiger skin on the sofa horrifies him. Robin reveals he has known Henry's identity all along, having pieced together clues over months of surveilling the compound. He shows them a room wallpapered with surveillance photos and maps of the WC. Robin threatens Rebecca's life unless Henry cooperates. To protect her, Henry claims Rebecca is his half sister, and when Gino and Chester are brought out, both corroborate the lie.

Edgar crashes the Cadillac through the perimeter fence. Robin retreats to the barn loft with all four hostages and presses a gun to Henry's head. Marie emerges from the car and demands her son's release. Robin's ultimatum: The Ludds must vacate the farm by noon the next day. He then reveals his final leverage: Months earlier, he found Tom in the Arboretum, mauled by the tiger Nuri, and kept him hostage. Sam, Robin's lieutenant, wheels Tom out in a wheelchair, emaciated and barely recognizable.

Caroline's voice speaks: "A leap of faith. Take him down, Bucko." Henry throws himself through the hayloft opening, pulling Robin with him. He crashes through the Cadillac's soft top; Robin strikes the trunk and dies on impact. Albert shoots Sam, Derek eliminates another lieutenant, and Robin's remaining followers flee.

Henry's journal entry on October 5, his 14th birthday and the first anniversary of the switch, details the compound's recovery. Rebecca, Dr. O'Toole, Sprint, Gary, and others have joined the community. Tom is recovering from malnutrition and severe injuries, and Marie has stepped down from leading the WC to care for him. Caroline's voice returns to Henry at the treehouse for the first time since the Rabbit Hole. In the final scene, Tom walks to Henry using a walker and invites him on a trip to the coast to pick up tuna, echoing the Tuna Day that marked the switch a year earlier. Henry grins and accepts.