OLD (2021)
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| Critic No. 258 |
Written by: M. Night Shyamalan (Based on ‘Sandcastle’ by Pierre Oscar Levy, Frederik Peeters)
Produced by: M. Night Shyamalan, Marc Bienstock, Ashwin Rajan
Casts: Gael Garcia Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Alex Wolff, Emun Elliot, Thomasin Mckenzie, Embeth Davidtz
Language: English
Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery
SYNOPSIS:
A vacationing family discovers that the secluded beach where they're relaxing for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly, reducing their entire lives into a single day.
REVIEW:
M.Night Shyamalan is an unique storyteller and his thrillers have always intrigued us due to its unconventional treatment, eerie atmosphere and his masterful third act twist. Of course, in the latter part of his career, his films started to get mixed reviews while his fans still loved his craziness he brings to the table (excluding the dismal movies, The Last Airbender (2010) and After Earth (2013)). He made a good comeback with The Visit (2015) and Split (2016) in recent times which managed to garner back his long lost mainstream audiences as well.
Old, is another riveting and inane high-concept thriller about a beach that renders anyone who steps foot on it to age by two years in a single hour. On a scene-to-scene basis, the film boasts some of Shyamalan’s most bizarre, Polanski-esque visual strategies.
Based on Pierre Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters’s 2010 graphic novel Sandcastle, the film opens with the he family that consists of Guy (Gael García Bernal), Prisca (Vicky Krieps) and their two children, Trent (Nolan River) and Maddox (Alexa Swinton). The resort manager tells them about a secluded beach where they can avoid the touristy crowds, and they are taken there by none other than Shyamalan himself in another meta cameo. They are joined by a doctor named Charles (Rufus Sewell), his wife Chrystal (Abbey Lee), his mother Agnes (Kathleen Chalfant) and his daughter Kara (Mikaya Fisher). A third couple joins them in Jarin (Ken Leung) and Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird). All of the travelers meet a mysterious traveler at the beach when they arrive, a rapper named Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre). As the waves crash the steep stones surrounding the beach, things start to get weird when Trent and Maddox start to get significantly older as hours pass by. When they try to escape, they faint and end up at the beach again. How they all fight this phenomena and escape forms the crux of the story.
Old, at some parts, is a genuinely distressing movie. It also has the trademark Shyamalan touch, which is both blunt and weirdly complicated, and full of the kind of absurdity that keeps us wondering how far it’s intentional. The film takes a while to kick off but once it does, the weirdness starts to engulf the beach. The pacing issues get resolved and the story races through a string of baffling but scary incidents which I don’t want to spill over and spoil the fun.
Like some of Shyamalan’s films, Old suffers from lengthy dialogues that are sometimes nothing but expositions which might seem more annoying especially when we have ineffective performances from the cast ensemble. Except the actors who essayed as the Guy’s family, all of them felt like they ran out from a B-grade film. And, surprisingly, the physical transformations of the older characters just aren’t terribly convincing for most of the characters. This pulls down the impact of the idea.
Also, in most M. Night Shyamalan’s films there are no definite answers to the weird world he had created. Likewise, in Old, there’s no explanation for why the beach has the ability to rapidly age the human body — until the very end, when there is some untangling of the concept, it is ridiculously satisfying for me.
That said, there’s no doubt about Shyamalan’s sheer originality as a visual storyteller – and on this level, Old may be the most outlandishly inventive film of his career. Is it the most effective? No, but I am happy that at least he is back to his roots.
Old might not be Shyamalan’s most effective high concept horror flick but he still manages to grip our attention with his unique visual strategies and eerie world building.
CELLULOID METER- 3.25/5:
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