A mother attempts to protect her children from the evil that lurks outside their isolated cabin in Never Let Go, now playing in Prague and cinemas worldwide. This allegorical horror film lacks the brutality of some of director Alexandre Aja‘s earlier films, but makes up for it with eerie cabin-in-the-woods atmosphere and boasts three superb performances from Halle Berry—who also produced the movie—alongside Anthony B. Jenkins and Percy Daggs IV as her character’s two young sons.
Unfortunately, it also bears one of Aja’s more infuriating traits: a confounding, unsatisfying ending that leaves us scratching our heads in search of what exactly the movie is trying to say. Like High Tension and Mirrors, Never Let Go doesn’t necessarily contain a twist ending or an ambiguous one, but a confusing mixture of conflicting elements that seem to negate each other. Wait… what?
Never Let Go stars Berry as Momma, who has been raising her twin sons Samuel and Nolan in a isolated cabin in the middle of a forest since they were infants. The two boys have never encountered another human, as mom tells them that a devastating evil took over the world, and the only safe space remaining is within their home, hidden in the woods.
The trio leave home to hunt and gather food, but only do so attached to the cabin via a lengthy cut of rope; if the connection is ever severed, the evil can take hold of them. Of course, Momma is the only one who can actually see the evil, represented by the rotting corpses of her family, including the boys’ father (William Catlett).
Early on in Never Let Go, we clue in to what must be happening here: either mom is correct, and there really is evil lurking out there beyond the walls of the cabin, or she’s suffering from a mental illness and forcing her children through unnecessary hardships under the guise of protecting them from her own inner demons.
For much of the running time, the film plays coy with what might be really going on. We instinctively believe that Momma is not on the level, while hints are dropped that there really is some kind of evil out there in the woods. Underneath it all, Never Let Go is telling two powerful allegories: in one, the events of the movie paint a stark portrait of child abuse, while in the other, the film examines questions of faith: how long will we blindly follow someone before we have the confidence to trust our own intuition?
Either one of these stories would be fascinating in their own right, and Never Let Go is maintains our interest right through the climax. With the introduction of a stranger (Matthew Kevin Anderson) who stumbles on the family home, we can feel a satisfying finale within the film’s grasp. But alas, that is not meant to be.
Aja is one of the best directors currently working in the horror genre, and his creature features like Crawl and Piranha 3D, and even a remake of The Hills Have Eyes, are tight, superbly-crafted, and better than casual viewers have any right to expect. But as a storyteller, he also has a tendency to get cute with his audience and deliver mystifying resolutions.
There’s a good movie within Never Let Go, and maybe even a great one. But the heartfelt allegories that the film develops throughout its runtime go up in flames with a finale that M. Night Shyamalan would have rejected. This one pulls us in tighter and tighter over the course of its entire running time only to let go of the rope at the very end.
