Movie Review: Old

You may find yourself midway through director M. Night Shyamalan’s film Old wondering exactly how you were snookered into watching another one of the filmmaker’s “gotcha” pictures after so many recent misfires. Shyamalan’s latest hybrid of drama, horror, and suspense is a turgid tangle of a story that offers very little of anything worthwhile in the various genres it contends to belong to.

The events of Old unfold as a vacationing family finds their tropical holiday is no longer the idyllic getaway they envisioned. Instead, they find themselves on a beach that is imbued with something that causes its occupants to rapidly age. Now trapped in this isolated location with a few other vacationers, the family find themselves battling against time itself to escape before they turn to dust.

Taking inspiration from the graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederick Peeters, Shyamalan attempts to create an altruistic tale concerning old age and the fight for survival. However, this is something that is far more effective in its original form as it feels as though several key elements have been lost in translation.

Gael García Bernal in “Old.”

The unlucky participants in this morality play seem on board with Shyamalan’s enthusiastic interpretation of the story, but there is little that Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps can do as Guy and Prisca, a couple perhaps ready to give up on each other. Nor is Rufus Sewell able to give his Charles any real depth as he succumbs to senility a little quicker than the others on the island. The additional players on the island, including Guy and Prisca’s children, serve as the core of the story, but explaining their roles and listing them here would give what little suspense the film holds completely away.

While there are those who may defend M. Night Shyamalan as a gifted storyteller and a filmmaker with a knack for suspense, Old is a long way from the solid entertainment that his far superior The Sixth Sense was twenty-two years ago. Worse yet, you may wonder whether or not you will allow yourself to be fooled again when his next release comes around.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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