Directed By Alexandre Aja

Starring – Halle Berry, Anthony B. Jenkins, Percy Daggs IV

The Plot – As an Evil takes over the world beyond their front doorstep, the only protection for a mother (Berry) and her twin sons (Jenkins, Daggs IV) is their house and their family’s protective bond. Needing to stay connected at all times, even tethering themselves with ropes, they cling to one another, urging each other to never let go. But when one of the boys questions if the evil is real, the ties that bind them together are severed, triggering a terrifying fight for survival.

Rated R for strong violent content and grisly images.

Never Let Go (2024) Official Trailer – Halle Berry (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

This film is not quite the one that was advertised in the marketing, and while that deception typically leads to this feeling of distrust within a production that makes it nearly impossible to overcome, Aja’s latest makes some refreshingly interesting choices that inscribed depth to this concept, resulting in a film that I enjoyed roughly 80% of. For starters, representation of a black family is a key ingredient, but in ways that legitimately brandishes meaning in the focus of their casting, with everything from trauma to poverty evoking a tragic consciousness to this film’s established conflict. As to where black culture is typically overlooked in stories like these, I’m happy to see Aja and his production tackle it with meaningful merit that makes for one truly compelling examination, where somehow the horror was the least interesting aspect about its distinguishing features. On top of this, the film could easily serve as one big allegory for parental guidance, with the rope itself doubling as an umbilical chord, and the evil in the world serving as the things that mother’s spend a lifetime preparing their offspring for, before they leave the house. Then there’s Aja, whose work here proves that he hasn’t missed a step since his last film, 2021’s ‘Oxygen’, luminating the atmosphere of this isolated swamp setting with a bedtime story kind of appeal that I honestly didn’t expect from him. To be honest, Aja trades in scares for stomach-churning tension, and while that will inevitably disappoint some looking for cheap thrills in frights, the true terror is in the psychological realities of what we’re seeing play out between the unraveling of this family, and Aja knows the exact movements to motion to push the envelope a little further when the storytelling absolutely demands it, keeping my interests maintained throughout 96 minutes of this story, alongside a trio of fascinating characters. While the film’s twist, if you can call it that, was easy to predict from the opening scene, I highly commend this film for having the gull to not only address some uncomfortable topics, but also make some unexpected decisions that reshaped the dynamic of characters, as well as the stakes of the movie, which recharges urgency and vulnerability to those in the wake of devastation. As for the work of its minimal ensemble, the film is led tremendously by heavily impactful performances from Berry, whose psychological deterioration not only obscures reality, but also manifests the kind of deep-seeded parental terror that far exceeds anything that the imagination can capably conjure. Likewise, the dynamic duo of Jenkins and Daggs are impeccable, especially for child actors acting through the biggest roles of their respective careers. Because the film makes the beneficial decision to follow them for the entirety of the film, it affords each of them an evolution that emotionally goes in completely opposing directions, where the coldly chilling eyes of Jenkins balances the mature stoicism of Daggs, enacting approaches to reads that feel every bit authentically natural as they do effective for what Aja continuously asks of them, and in turn cementing what is definitely my favorite child performances of the entire year. Lastly, the production follows Aja’s lead exceptionally by supercharging the isolation factor and haunted hysterics of the established environment, causing it to enhance our investment to the interactions while tenderly toeing the air of silence that feels like it could engulf our characters at any given moment. Aja has always been someone who values meaningful mixing to enhance the grizzly details of what’s depicted, but here that emphasis carries over to elements of a creaky old house that continuously plays tricks on the interpretive capabilities of the audience, where every step of the characters, or swing of the lens feels like it burdens such inevitable responses from something we’re not visually privy to.

NEGATIVES

As initially established, the film takes one refreshing direction with its horror, but then wastes it away by such an underwhelming ending that wants the best of both worlds, despite how contradictory such a sentiment saddles the story with. Without spoiling anything, there’s legitimately only two ways that this conflict can reveal itself as, and while I loved that first reveal, I feel the second one relied far too heavily on paranormal aspects visually that distracted from the sentiment of the characters and their psychological traumas, deducing it to just another conventional horror ending that kept it from standing out as special. It isn’t enough that the first reveal is heavily predictable by the script strangely revealing its cards so early in the film, but it’s even worse when it tries to play both sides of the field with its resolution, which not only leaves a few established aspects abandoned on what feels like the cutting room floor, but also elements to the resolution that downright don’t make sense with what we’re being shown (Particularly one Polaroid picture), leaving enough ambiguity in the timid restraint of its execution that audiences could argue one side over the other for. I mentioned the editing a second ago, and that was another major problem that I had with the film, primarily during the first half, where these abrupt cuts halted the development of a conversation in scene so prematurely that I legitimately felt that the film strip in my theater skipped at the most inopportune moments. Considering it happens too often to feel accidental, that idea doesn’t feel quite the case, with members in my audience even laughing audibly and sarcastically about drifting away from a conversation before a character has the freedom to answer a question being asked to them. Also, I previously mentioned that the film shows its cards a bit too early, and though I did enjoy the direction its reveal took the story, I do wish the script would’ve taken more time with teasing the uncertainty of the audience, as it becomes quite obvious what is taking shape here, within the first five minutes of the movie, and considering the film takes us through some pretty dark depths, predictability should never be something so easily manifested in a film that frequently pushes the audacious envelope so matter-of-factly. Finally, while I’ve been a fan of composer Robin Coudert’s work since his time on 2012’s ‘Maniac’, I found his compositions here to be inconsistent and even slightly distracting during the more reserved moments of the film’s execution. While Robin conjures dread and urgency in tones throughout physical conflict, those nuanced moments of reflection feel very meandering and even a bit corny when corresponding with such on-the-nose and unimaginative dialogue, helping to forcefully paint for the audience what they caught onto within the first, fifth or tenth time they attempted such.

OVERALL
‘Never Let Go’ doesn’t have the frights of Alexandre Aja’s early work, but it does have the rare bait-and-switch with its marketing that actually worked, and if not for the inconsistencies and contradictories of such an underwhelmingly safe ending, would’ve been another for the pile of exceptional horror movies in 2024 that are far succeed this. With top tier direction and production, as well as eye-opening performances from the youthful duo of Anthony B. Jenkins and Percy Daggs IV, the film maintains its grip on an entertaining-but-conventional psychological thriller, capturing the irreparable damage done by black familial trauma whose biggest impact can be felt for generations.

My Grade: 6/10 or C-