Creature-Feature director Alexandre Aja and star Halle Berry have crafted another miss from Lionsgate: a tediously paced, anticlimactic, familiar, and poorly written post-apocalyptic family drama.
Never Let Go takes place in an alternate reality version of America where the world has been consumed by “The Evil.” We follow Momma (Halle Berry), who will do whatever is necessary to protect her twin sons Samuel & Nolan (Anthony B. Jenkins & Percy Daggs IV), who live in a remote cabin in the woods, by only leaving the house wearing a rope tied to the foundation of the property in order to protect the family from “The Evil’s” touch. With only Momma able to see The Evil, Nolan begins to question everything he’s ever known.
While waiting in line for this screening, I felt like it was the appropriate time to finally watch the trailer for this film. After watching the brief promo, the film seemed to be a post-apocalyptic monster horror about keeping your family safe, and I was genuinely intrigued, having liked some of Aja’s previous works (Piranha 3D, The Hills Have Eyes (2006), High Tension, and Crawl, to name a few). Sadly, nothing could have prepared me for the sheer amount of disappointment I was going to feel. While it has moments of some very striking gore and two great child performances, I found the film to be a tediously paced mess that completely misses the mark.
As the film opens, we smash cut to a graphically decayed body of a child, initiating intrigue immediately. Sadly, this intrigue doesn’t last long, as after the first scene involving “The Evil,” you have a strong feeling about how the rest of the story will go. The film’s opening credits begin as the camera pans over the vast forest that swallows the shack this family calls home. As soon as the audience is introduced to Momma, it is not a secret that there is something she isn’t telling her children. With that being the crux of the suspense for the entire film, it immediately gets stale fast as the film’s script speed runs every trope ever used in a psychological thriller. If you’re a seasoned fan of the genre, I find it very hard to picture somebody finding enjoyment in the tedious structure of the narrative. The film is very slow-paced to try and build tension, but that tension is ultimately cut short when every scene plays out the same way. It takes about an hour for the story to progress in any meaningful way, and by that point, it is such a drastic shift in the narrative that I feel it will lose a lot of audiences, as it lost me at this point. The third act places such an emphasis on the children, but it feels incredibly jarring as we don’t ever get the necessary backstory or answers to inform the audience what they have been watching for the past hour.
The performances in the film are inconsistent for the most part. Halle Berry completely overdoes it as a woman who is losing her grip on her sanity. There’s no empathy for her character, nothing for the audience to latch onto in her performance. Thankfully enough, Jenkins and Daggs both turn in great performances, with Jenkins’ character being loyal to Berry’s teachings and Daggs getting the most empathy from the audience as a kid who just wants to have a normal childhood with his family. These two excel in the film’s more intense moments, feeling like real-life brothers pitted against each other to decide what is best for their family. Unfortunately, the script doesn’t give Jenkins much to do, as I was more impressed with his work in the hilariously awful Lee Daniels film The Deliverance.
On the visual side, Aja’s frequent collaborator, cinematographer Maxime Alexandre, is able to craft some incredibly dynamic shots during all of the ensuing blandly written chaos. I also really appreciate the amount of background imagery placed in the film during the more tense scenes. Regardless of how poor I think the film’s script is at fleshing out its ideas, Alexandre Aja’s direction remains a highlight, as there is always an uncomfortable atmosphere present throughout every sequence.
For as well shot and directed as I think this movie is, it ultimately falls apart due to the poor screenplay by Ryan Grassby & Kevin Coughlin that poses way more questions than answers, with zero explanation of what the audience witnessed, poor character development, and familiar story beats.
Never Let Go is directed by Alexandre Aja and written by Ryan Grassby & Kevin Coughlin. It stars Halle Berry, Anthony B. Jenkins, and Percy Daggs IV. Lionsgate will be releasing the film on September 20th, 2024.
This review of Never Let Go was made possible thanks to an advanced screening from Lionsgate.
