Let me preface this review by saying I am mostly an M. Night Shyamalan fan. I loved all of his films, from The Sixth Sense (1999) up to Lady in the Water (2006), and more recently, I enjoyed The Visit (2015) and Split (2016). I think every director is entitled to a few rough releases, and Shyamalan gets much more than a fair share of criticisms for his.
One of the misconceptions about Shyamalan’s films is that they have no rewatch value because of the reliance on his twist endings. I would argue that these films actually have much more rewatch value than your common thriller. Once you’ve watched the film a first time, going back and seeing it a second time with a new mindset brought on by the twist, and noticing all of the things you missed, you might as well be experiencing the film for the first time.
My issues with some of Shyamalan’s films have always come from the more linear stories that don’t really feel like they have his style and touch, like The Last Airbender (2010) or After Earth (2013). When I saw the trailer for Old, I got excited because it felt like a Shyamalan film, so I braved the theaters to give it a try.
Old follows the Cappa family as they embark on a three-day vacation at the luxurious Anamika Resort as one final family getaway before Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps) complete the paperwork for their oncoming divorce. As a special add-on, the resort manager suggests a relaxing day at a perfect and secluded beach nearby, to which the hotel will take them and retrieve them.
After agreeing, the Cappa family is joined by a few other families staying at the resort, and they are dropped off at the beach. Upon arrival, the group is joined a few others, as well as come upon professional rapper Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre), who is waiting for his companion to finish her swim.
While taking a dip, Trent Cappa (Nolan River) finds the body of Sedan’s friend, and when the group tries to leave the beach to get help, they suffer massive migraines and blackouts while trying to escape the way they came in. While trying to find ways to escape, an older member of the party dies of old age, and the group starts to notice the children are growing older at a rapid rate.
It seems the party is aging at a one-year/per half-an-hour rate, and everyone has one family member with a detrimental sickness. The group must find a way off the beach before the aging process can take their lives one by one.
Like with most of Shyamalan’s films, much of the flow of this storyline is reliant on spoilers and a twist. Without going into too much detail, the concept of this film is really strong. There is something good in there. It’s like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone, and that’s not bad for me. Unfortunately, with Old, the story clumsily chugs toward the end, giving you on-the-nose hints and explanations along the way. Nothing truly feels impactful as it does with some of his other films.
The environmental and general cinematography looked excellent. Shyamalan has always had a talent for using long, intense, panning 360-degree shots. This style is catching on with newer horror directors like Ari Aster or Robert Eggers. But Shyamalan has been perfecting it since the late ’90s, and Old is no exception for beautiful technical work.
RELATED: ‘The Others’ is Still One of the Best Ghost Stories on Film
The acting was a mixed bag. Some of the more intimate one-on-one conversations are done fantastically, which has always been a strength of Shyamalan’s (think Haley Joel Osment and Toni Collette in The Sixth Sense). However, the further into the story the film gets, and the more characters get involved, the worse the dialogue writing gets.
Sometimes, it feels like Shyamalan forgets how humans naturally talk to one another. I’m pointing out the writing instead of the acting because I’ve seen many of these actors in many different films. Some of them are extremely talented. I’ve seen Hereditary; I know exactly how great Alex Wolff can be. Plus, the exposition is completely exhausting, to the point that the characters tell us exactly what is happening on screen as we watch it, almost as if they are grabbing us by the shoulders and screaming it into our faces. It’s hard to watch an actor like Ken Leung struggle to deliver convoluted exposition, especially when I’ve seen him do it much better in Lost.
Old also has a lot of silly scenes and holes in its story as well. There’s an extremely uncomfortable and weird scene involving getting a baby born on the beach for shock value, and sometimes even the simplest of questions aren’t answered, like why the group has blackout headaches when trying to escape the beach but not upon entering.
There is some explanation there, but it sort of contradicts itself, and I’m not buying. I couldn’t even really turn my brain off and embrace it as just a silly movie because the theme and plot were dark and taken seriously.
Overall, I can’t say I enjoyed it. The bones of a great science fiction story are there, but like the characters, by the end of the film, they start to wither away to dust, leaving me with nothing substantial to hold onto.
RELATED: Review: ‘A Classic Horror Story’ is a Scary Ride with Twists and Turns
