Neverlost Review
Josh can’t sleep and following the death of his fiancee Kate his life has got steadily worse, in part due to his incessant insomnia. His current girlfriend is cheating on him and there appears to be little affection between the two. Desperate to get some sleep and try and get his life back in order Josh starts taking sleeping pills. Whenever he sleeps he lives an alternate reality, one in which his fiancee Kate is still alive and he has been in coma, only awakening from the coma when he falls asleep in the other reality.
Which is the real reality? How can Josh stay in the idyllic one permanently? Is Kate telling him the whole truth? Do I care? These were all questions that came to mind whilst watching Neverlost but unfortunately it was the last question that ultimately sums up my experience with the film. The film failed to pull me in on any emotional level and it also failed to draw me into the mystery at its core.
Neverlost is not Chad Archibald’s first foray into film but it is an early work and for that reason I will give him the benefit of the doubt to a degree. There were obviously ideas at the heart of Neverlost that if developed with more skill could have been much more interesting and there were also a few moments of visual flair but these were unfortunately few and far between. Too often the film was little more than an extended short film and the look never transcended its micro-budget, something that other films have proved is possible.
With a young and seemingly inexperienced cast the performances are very hit and miss and this only adds to the amateurish feel that the film already has. Although Archibald mentioned the influence of other films on Neverlost in his Q&A, direct lifting of the score from Requiem for a Dream was pretty inexcusable, especially so when you consider that Darren Aronofsky’s first feature film, Pi, was a similarly low budget film which exploded with originality.
Although I was underwhelmed by Neverlost I will be watching to see what Archibald does next as I did see some hints in Neverlost that he has some talent as a director and perhaps with a better script and more time and money he could have some success.