M. Night Shyamalan broke into Hollywood with his instant classic The Sixth Sense. The film captured the imagination of the world, its final reveal being one of the best in movie history. Shyamalan followed that with the equally lauded Unbreakable proving himself to be more than a one hit wonder. His next slew of films, whilst always popular with audiences due to the almost trademark Shyamalan twist, saw a rapid decline in quality story work. After the double whammy of 2010’s The Last Airbender and 2013’s After Earth, many had written Shyamalan off for good, but then with the release of The Visit he showed audiences that he still had that spark. Split subsequently cemented him back at the top of his game, and whilst its sequel Glass was a little wobbly, the filmmaker has been riding a bit of a high again in recent years. All attention then is now on his latest creation Old, to see whether Shyamalan is truly back at the top of his game.
Adapted from the graphic novel Sandcastle, written by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederick Peeters, Old tells the chilling tale of one family’s visit to a beach that goes horribly wrong when they realise that it is causing them to age rapidly. As the children become adults in a blink of an eye and the adults themselves grow ever older, they must work quickly to work out how to stop the strange phenomena if any of them are going to survive the day.
Old opens with our core family on the way to the Anamika resort, the topic of conversation focusing on growing older and embracing youth etc. Given the title and premise of the movie that is about to unfold, this feels very on the nose. Shyamalan tries to infuse humour into his work and, as with some previous attempts, the comedy falls flat on its face, with one exception. This doesn’t last, and before long the failed humour has been forgotten about.
Those that have seen that overly long theatrical trailer will be wondering whether it has given too much away. The simple answer is: kind of. There are a lot of red herrings that have been placed to send the viewer down the wrong rabbit-hole, which whilst great at concealing the surprise, are actually a massive letdown as the signposted rabbit-holes present a more interesting and disturbing tale.
Old continues to struggle from a technical standpoint. For some odd reason, the framing of our cast is always slightly off. Rather than see full faces and heads, the images either crop off the top of the skull, or zoom in on a single body part – an eye, the hair, the calves. The purpose behind such a move is unclear other than to potentially try and mask some of the bigger leaps in ageing. Whatever the idea behind the style choice is, it’s just too distracting, and whilst a good magician harnesses distractions, here it is so obvious that the effect is cheap and pointless. The score also seems intent on trying to beat the audience to death with its excessive need to always be the loudest thing on screen.
Made during pandemic, Old could be forgiven for some of its faults were there not so many of them. The dialogue is awfully clunky and the high calibre cast all struggle to get their tongues around it. Our central mystery is never explored in the depth that it deserves, and it takes a whole lot of time to get anywhere. Not at all the solidifying return to glory that Shyamalan fans will be hoping for, Old quickly wears out its welcome. It’s not all bad news however, there are some flashes of intrigue scattered amongst the beach, but much like the ground the characters are stranded on, they slip between their fingers like grains of sand.
What should be a chilling story about facing the inevitability of death and the upsetting velocity in which children grow up, is foregone in favour of a headscraching riddle that purports to be more than it is. Shyamalan has written some of the best final acts in film, but this one feels tagged on and offers a frustrating lack of satisfaction. The process of the children ageing so rapidly is bypassed too fast and yet it is within this concept that the true horror lies.
Old is released in cinemas on 23rd July 2021.
Old
Summary
Shyamalan strikes out once more in this frustrating example of an interesting premise squandered.
