Every once in a while, a movie comes along with a premise that sounds like a surefire win. Never Let Go is one of those movies. Directed by Alexandre Aja—known for his work on The Hills Have Eyes and Crawl—and backed by the executive producers of Stranger Things and Arrival, this psychological thriller-horror hybrid had all the right ingredients to become a standout. Add Oscar winner Halle Berry to the mix, playing a mother protecting her twin sons from a mysterious evil, and you’d expect a high-stakes, emotionally resonant ride.
Instead, what we get is a frustratingly vague, emotionally distant, and narratively clumsy experience that unravels more and more with each scene.
Let me begin with what I like most about the movie: Halle Berry. She’s long proven she knows how to carry a thriller on her back, and here, she throws herself into the role of a paranoid, traumatized mother with intensity and conviction. The young actors playing her sons also bring believable vulnerability and fear to their performances. Their chemistry as a family feels real, even tender at times. Unfortunately, that’s about as far as the strengths of the film go.
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The premise is simple yet intriguing: a mother and her two sons live isolated in a cabin, connected by ropes that ensure they never stray too far apart. An undefined evil lurks outside—one that’s never seen or explained but is said to consume those who disobey the rules or question their reality. As long as they stay indoors or remain physically connected to home, they are safe. The moment that connection is broken, chaos looms.
It’s a haunting concept, but Never Let Go doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. The film flirts with meaningful themes like motherhood, trauma, control, and survival, but it never settles on any of them. It wants to be psychological horror, but it refuses to build the psychological framework that makes horror effective. It wants to be allegorical, but it can’t even be clear about what it’s allegorizing.
From the very beginning, the story keeps its cards too close to its chest. There’s nothing wrong with ambiguity if it’s used to deepen a story, but here, it feels more like a cover-up for underdeveloped ideas. As viewers, we’re left in the dark—not in a thrilling way, but in a way that makes us wonder whether the filmmakers even had the answers to begin with.
Why are they living in the woods in the first place? What happened to the rest of the world? Is this supernatural, psychological, or spiritual? Is it grief? Madness? Religion? Science fiction? We’re never told. The script assumes that mood and mystery are enough to keep us invested, but even mood needs meaning, and mystery needs stakes.
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By the time the third act rolls around, Never Let Go has already lost most of its momentum. And yet, it insists on tossing in a series of plot twists and turns that feel neither earned nor coherent. The climax is so disjointed and confusing that it retroactively makes the rest of the film feel even more hollow. Whatever it’s trying to say gets lost in the noise of ambiguity for ambiguity’s sake.
There are brief flashes of brilliance—shots that are visually striking, sound design that builds dread, and a few moments where you really feel the characters’ desperation. But these are just moments, quickly swallowed up by a story that refuses to clarify itself.
What’s most disappointing is how much potential was wasted. The core idea—about a mother’s intense, maybe even unhealthy, need to protect her children in a broken world—could have been a powerful exploration of fear, control, and emotional trauma. But the film doesn’t trust itself or its audience enough to dig deeper. It keeps everything vague, and as a result, it keeps us emotionally detached.
By the end, the only thing you’ll be holding onto is the hope that the next psychological thriller you watch won’t be this forgettable.
Never Let Go should have let go of its muddled narrative and half-baked mystery and embraced a clearer, more emotionally grounded story. Halle Berry and the twin kids deserved better. So did we.
