Review: Never Let Go

Director:  Alexandre Aja

Stars:  Halle Berry, Anthony B. Jenkins, Percy Daggs IV

When I first saw the trailer for Never Let Go, sitting in a multiplex seat for I forget what, my first experience was déjà vu. Isolated building lost in some endless forest… the people inside tormented by some barely glimpsed threat lurking between the trees… Hadn’t I just watched this movie??

Arriving so closely on the heels of Ishana Night Shyamalan’s fantasy horror The Watched (or The Watchers, depending on where you are) surely can’t have helped Never Let Go. Which is a bit of a shame, as Alexandre Aja’s latest – starring and produced by Halle Berry – is a better attack on a similar idea, anchored by a stronger set of performances and a knottier set of themes. Where Shyamalan’s fable threw together a bunch of stock-character strangers, Aja beds us in with a family, and some darkly woven and cryptic lore to unpack.

Samuel (Anthony B. Jenkins) and Nolan (Percy Daggs IV) are twin boys who have only ever known the cabin in the woods they call home. We’re possibly in the most rural trenches of Tennessee, but even this isn’t confirmed. They have lived all of their lives with their embittered, possibly-crazy mother Jo (Berry), protected from a world she is convinced has turned evil. Indeed, the three of them can only ever leave the safety of the cabin if they have a rope tied about their waist; an umbilical that magically protects them from the trickster threat hiding out in the undergrowth.

Never Let Go grows more curious when it reveals that Jo is the only one of them who can see the monsters lurking in the forest, which commonly manifest as zombies of former loved ones with creepy forked tongues. Seeds of doubt are sewn in the audience and given voice by Nolan, who starts to suspect that dear mom has been lying to them this whole time…

The script from Ryan Grassby and Kevin Coughlin is heavy with metaphor and reference. The maternal imagery of those thick ropes is pregnant – pardon the pun – with meaning, suggestive that Jo is perhaps a mentally ill woman refusing to let her children come to harm. But that her overprotectiveness is its own form of trauma in the making. Berry is on top form here, part-matriarch part-crone. Jo often seems to relish scaring the boys, yet she believes every fairy tale she tells them, scaring herself in the process. Meanwhile, the idea of twin brothers vying with one another in an undeveloped wilderness comes with its own weighty religious precedents. But which is Cain and which is Abel?

The familial bond gives Aja’s film the edge (if we’re still having him compete with Shyamalan) and while Never Let Go is peppered with jumpy bits and gooey looking ghouls to keep impatient viewers sated, its the human conflict that motors this thing along. With Berry in powerhouse mode, this all hinges on the two much younger players, and it is to their immense credit that both Jenkins and Daggs IV impress. Throw in Aja’s years of genre experience, and Never Let Go is built from even sturdier foundations than the family’s rustic woodland hidey-hole.

It’s also a lot grimmer than one might have suspected. While the threat between the trees is never forgotten, the mid-section of Never Let Go is a dark study of starvation, as a tough winter robs the family of many lifelines. At it’s bleakest, the family start to tun on one another, leading to an upset that changes the dynamic of the picture for good.

Having evolved somewhat shockingly, however, Never Let Go grows nervous. Efforts to make us further question what’s real and what isn’t are handled well, but the film’s resolution is, ironically, a confused attempt to ‘do a Shyamalan’. Aja amps up to reveals that don’t really land with any oomph, and the solidification of the movie’s reality ultimately leads to more questions than it does answers. It feels akin to the problems that tangled up the often excellent Cuckoo. The communication of lore here feels wanting and ultimately underserved. I want more information about the cellar, the etchings around the doorframe, etc.

Mystery can be an evocative, powerful thing. I’m all for leaving things unexplained. There’s a sense of power and possibility there. But Never Let Go doesn’t feel mysterious… it feels poorly executed. As though some fundamentals got lost in the edit, too awkward to shoehorn back in. I’m also generally forgiving of plot holes but, without the missing information, it’s tough to tell what’s deliberately contradictory and what’s not been thought through.

Of course, it’s possible I simply didn’t get it.

Regardless, the end fumbles its intention, leaving the credits to roll on a pervading sense of dissatisfaction. I was underwhelmed after, frankly, a lot of good work.

The core actors can feel proud of what they’ve achieved here, one and all, and if you’re in a jackpot over whether to watch this or The Watched I’d say its no contest. The meatier, messier material is over here. Just be mindful that those coiled ropes trip the film up in the final stages, and you may exit feeling a little lost.

This is also (at least) the third film this year to feature characters coming across a simple country road and having no idea what the fuck it is. Which is a weird thing to have happen so many times at the cinema in 2024.