There is no denying that I’ve never been a huge fan of M. Night Shyamalan’s films. Outside of Unbreakable, Signs, and Split, his films have never truly intrigued me the way it has many. If those reading are asking themselves, “wait a minute, where is The Sixth Sense?” While I’ve seen the film, it’s been about 20 years since my last view, and I found it unfair to classify the film as one I love despite its overwhelming praise. As the filmmaker embarks on a new release, I was pretty intrigued with the teaser for Old as the film’s trailer offered thought-provoking ideas.
Unfortunately, Shyamalan fails to fully delve into those themes instead it focuses on a mix of tension filled moments and Cronenberg-esque body horror that puts Old in the mid-tier of his work.
Old is based on the graphic novel Sandcastles by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters and follows Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his wife Prisca (Vicky Krieps) as they go on vacation with their children, 11-year-old Maddox (Alexa Swinton) and six-year-old Trent (Nolan River). Early on, it’s established that this may be the last family vacation they take together as they are on the verge of separation. When the family and an array of guests at their resort are taken to the beach, the events that come after begin to create questions about why they went to the isolated beach in the first place.
What M. Night gets right in Old is creating a feeling reminiscent of an episode of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone. In a similar fashion to the series’ pilot “Where Is Everybody?” the film is ripe with tension and chilling cinematography that will have its audience wondering, why were these individuals taken to this beach? Why is everyone aging at a rapid pace? And where is everyone else? But, of course, these questions are eventually answered, and similar to the Twilight Zone episode, the film’s twist will determine whether or not you like or dislike the movie as a whole.
While the viewers’ overall rating will be dependent on its twist, what feels refreshing for M. Night is his choice to naturally build its way to the ultimate twist by showing each individual’s aging through a unique lens. In addition, Shyamalan’s and cinematographer Mike Gioulakis’s choice to have long takes allows for each character to have enough time to show how they’ve aged. This creates an added tension that adds to the film’s overall effectiveness.
While Shyamalan puts a focus on each character’s aging, he does not, however, create exciting characters as a whole. While it’s always great to see Alex Wolff and Thomasin McKenzie in any film, they are wasted here, as with many of M. Night’s movies. Instead, cinephiles are privy to one-note characters that offer up an array of poor performances and cringe-inducing dialogue that will bring to light the question of whether or not this was the first draft of a script.
Often, it feels that Shyamalan is holding the film back from being more than just your middle-of-the-road horror film. However, the film’s source material offers an array of themes and scope that could have made this one of the best Shyamalan films in a while. Still, the director’s latest reconfirms my original sentiments that M. Night Shyamalan is a one-trick pony who isn’t the most exciting filmmaker.
