Diksha Sundriyal
Alexandre Aja’s 2024 survival horror thriller, ‘Never Let Go,’ follows the story of a woman and her two sons who live in the wilderness by themselves. At the beginning of the story, it seems that the rest of the world is gone, consumed by the Evil, and the woman, June, and her sons, Sam and Nolan, are the only ones left behind. What makes things interesting is the fact that June is the only one who can see the Evil, while her sons have to rely on her judgment. One of the rules is that they can never leave the house without having a rope tied around them which ties them to the house and hence keeps them safe.
Having lived under her rules for years, Sam is devoted to her and them and believes every single word she says. Nolan, on the other hand, has started to doubt her and wonders if the Evil is real at all. He believes that his mother has lost her marbles and even thinks about running away on his own, as he believes that there might be other people in the world as well. The third half of the film really plays with the audience’s mind as we are given evidence both for and against June’s mental state, which leaves the ending purposely ambiguous. SPOILERS AHEAD
Were the Man and the Girl Real?
In an effort to get his mother to see the truth and prevent her from killing the family dog to feed themselves, Nolan cuts off her rope and locks her in the greenhouse. The plan backfires, and the mother kills herself, which leaves both brothers to fend for themselves. One day, Nolan ties all the ropes together and walks so far that he comes to the end of the woods and finds the road, only he doesn’t understand that it is a road. He goes back after crying for help into the woods, and his voice is heard by a hiker named Cole.
Cole’s arrival sparks hope in Nolan, whose doubts are confirmed. He was right in believing that there are others out there in the world who can help them. At the same time, the man’s arrival confirms Sam’s beliefs as well. He sees Cole as the manifestation of the Evil sent to lure them out of their house. For him, this is the sign that what his mother told them all these years is the truth. Despite his brother’s and the man’s pleas, Sam fires an arrow at the man, who dies after covering a distance into the woods. When Nolan follows after him, he finds the man on the brink of death, but it is confirmed that the man is not Evil but a real person who could have helped them.
Before dying, the man calls 911 for help but dies before being able to give them any details of his whereabouts and his condition. Nolan takes his bag which has food, as the man had promised, and it keeps the boys going for another day. But that’s not the end of it. Later at night, when Nolan is sleeping, Sam starts to spiral. At first, he thinks he sees his mother in the greenhouse, but when he goes there, he finds nothing but her rotting dead body. And then, a girl shows up, claiming to be Cole’s daughter. Only, she is not real.
While going through Cole’s things, Sam saw a picture of Cole and his daughter. This is how he recognizes the girl as his daughter, but the interesting thing is that she is wearing exactly what she had been wearing in the picture. Moreover, it seems unlikely that her father would just leave her by the car and go out into the woods alone, and even more unlikely that she would venture into the woods by herself so late at night. Sam doesn’t think all this through and chases after her, trying to explain that he killed her father by mistake. By this point, Sam seems so sure that she is real that he lets go of his rope, and that’s when all hell breaks loose. The moment he is out of the safety of the rope, the girl shows her real form. She attacks Sam and lets loose a weird bug in his mouth, possessing him for good.
How Does Nolan Defeat the Evil?
When Nolan wakes up in the house, he finds his brother missing. Then, to his horror, the rope that should have been tied to Sam turns out to be loose. This is very, very concerning because Nolan knows that his brother believed in the Evil and the rope’s power too much to let it go so easily. Sure enough when Sam comes back, he is possessed and tries to kill Nolan by locking him in the house and burning down the house. As Sam sits outside, Nolan tries to find a way out, which is when Evil shows itself to him in the form of his mother. Despite the fire raging around him, Nolan is clear-headed enough to know that this is not his real mother. Better, he also has a plan to defeat it.
What kept the boys safe for so long was the ancient and blessed wood with which the house was built. There were carvings on it everywhere, especially in one place on the floor that opened into a crawlspace where June would often lock up Sam and Nolan to test their faith. If there is one place where Evil can be contained, it is there, and that’s where Nolan takes the Evil. He traps it and himself inside the crawlspace, and instead of fighting the Evil, he embraces it. Because it is in the form of his mother and is most likely a manifestation of his guilt because his mother killed herself because of his actions.
Due to his skepticism of the Evil all this while, Nolan was never scared of it. Or at least, he never thought that the Evil had enough power over him to control his thoughts and actions. Even as he comes face to face with the Evil, he doesn’t let it scare him into submission or be possessed by it. The only way out is through, so he embraces the Evil and speaks of his love for his mother. Even as the Evil tries to wrest itself out of his embrace, he holds on to it harder, and soon enough, the outer layer of his mother’s form is shed, and the Evil appears in its true, snake-like form and eventually dissipates into the air.
When Nolan wakes up, he finds himself being airlifted and taken to the civilization. His brother is also there, and finally, Nolan can rest. As he sees the world out there, something he had always imagined while sequestered in the woods with his mother and brother, he believes that they are finally free, and he believes it, too. He came face to face with the Evil, and he defeated it. He didn’t let himself be taken by the fear, and stood his ground, forcing the Evil to admit defeat to him. He still has the trauma of his mother’s death and has a lot to process, considering everything that he and his brother had been kept from all this while. But now, he and Sam have the chance to be a part of the world and start their lives anew. Nolan, for one, has broken through the cycle of trauma that had gripped their family for generations and is ready to move on. The same, however, cannot be said about his brother.
Is Sam Infected by the Evil? What Do the Hand in the Photo and “She Loves Me More” Mean?
The major conflict throughout the story is whether or not the Evil is real. The movie expertly gives us enough for and against to justify the beliefs of Sam and Nolan with regard to their mother. Logically, it seems June has a mental illness, which her mother also had. The Evil is the manifestation of this illness and is simply in her mind, which explains why her sons can’t see it. When Cole comes into the picture, the theory of the Evil being imaginary seems to be confirmed, but then the girl comes, and Sam is possessed. Moreover, Nolan also sees the Evil in the form of his mother. And then, there is the polaroid that Sam takes as the house burns down behind him. The photo left behind shows the hand of a creature that was not there when Sam took the picture. Does this mean that the Evil was real all along? The answer is more complicated than that.
While yes the photographic evidence might present itself as an objective lens to the audience, it must be noted that the Evil seems to have been limited to the woods because the rest of the world seems to be functioning fine when their mother told them that there was nothing out there. Moreover, what Nolan saw can be chalked up to the fact that he was in a burning house while dealing with a whole lot of guilt about having messed up everything by getting his mother killed and his brother possessed. What he saw and defeated could very well have been a trick of his mind. As for Sam, he may be suffering from the same mental illness that plagued his mother and grandmother, which explains the girl and his possession.
What makes things more interesting is the possibility that it is not the “either-or” of the situation. It isn’t whether or not the Evil is real, but that it is real, and the world is not affected by it in the way that June told her sons. The most rational explanation is that Evil has always been there, and it always will be. One cannot outrun it, as sooner or later, it will show itself and confront the person. What makes it worse is hiding from it rather than looking at it in the face and confronting it back. This is what Nolan did, and this is why he was the only person who could defeat it. The same didn’t happen for Sam and June.
Like his mother, Sam was scared of Evil. He let his fear override his strength, which is why when Evil showed itself to him, he didn’t stand a chance in front of it. While his brother had enough time to fight back, Sam was immediately taken over and possessed. This is what Sam had feared all this while, and this is what came true in the end. Nolan, on the other hand, always questioned the presence and the power of the Evil. Even when he talked about leaving the woods, he entertained the idea of being able to outrun it. He was scared of it, but not so much that he would let his entire life be spent in the woods while starving and being cut off from the rest of the world. This is why, in the end, what he wanted came true. He did outrun the Evil, and he found exactly what he had been looking for.
In this context, Sam is definitely infected by the Evil. You could call it the mental illness and the trauma he has suffered, or you could say that it’s the literal Evil that has latched on to him. One thing that’s confirmed is that Sam will never be able to let go of it, not like his brother has. He was possessed by the Evil in the woods and he has carried it with him even as he is being carried to safety, to the outside world his mother claimed never existed. When he says, “She loves me more,” it calls back to an earlier scene in the film where Nolan hears the same thing, but Sam claims he didn’t say it. Because we don’t see Sam’s face at the time, we cannot confirm whether he actually said it at the start of the film.
Still, there is a chance that he might have lie about it later, as he did consider himself his mother’s favorite because he was more devoted to her and had blind faith in her, as compared to Nolan. His repeating those words in the helicopter proves that he is still holding on to that feeling of belief in the things his mother told him. This means that even when he has physically left the woods, he is still stuck there. Like his mother, who eventually returned to the woods for good, Sam too will return there one day, and meet a similar fate as her.
Read More: Never Let Go: Is the Horror Movie Based on a True Story?
