Technically, Yes, ‘Old’ Is, In Fact, A Movie
Starring Gael Garcia Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Alex Wolff and Thomasin McKenzie
Rated PG-13
Drama/Thriller
Run time: 1 hr, 48 min
Directed, written and produced by M. Night Shyamalan
In theaters July 23, 2021
I felt obligated to see this movie because the preview was before every single film I’ve seen in theaters since they opened back up earlier this year. The first handful of times it had popped up in the trailers, I had been a bit terrified and was saying there was no chance I’d be able to see Old. The hint of body horror and jump-scare-inducing music were enough to make me want to run the other way. But then, they got me right where they wanted me. I had to know the twist. I needed the explanation. I was dying to know just what or how these people were being rapidly aged or seemingly incapacitated or ill. It’s just a beach, right? This was M. Night Shyamalan, so there had to be something good at the end that would make the audience gasp, right?
You’d think so. Because the premise is simple. There’s this fancy-shmancy resort that looks too good to be true (because of course, it is), and there’s a private beach that this concierge-type man only tells his favorite guests about (wink, wink). But then four parties (of various sizes - a family of four, a couple, a man+wife+daughter+mom+dog combo and a newly formed young adult pairing of a pretty blonde and a rapper) find themselves there, all seemingly the concierge’s favorite guests. And then things get crazy. Or at least it kind of does. This beach somehow seems to trap all the people on it and begins to age them, with thirty minutes equaling one year of life. That’s what the trailer tells us, and that, almost exclusively is the whole plot of the film.
Well, I sat through all one hour and forty-eight minutes of this film and I would have rather have spent that time watching the trailer on repeat than have watched the whole movie, because at least then there would still be the potential that I’d actually like what would come in the rest of it. Unfortunately, I am now aware that cannot be true. I spent half this movie laughing at things I suspect weren’t supposed to be knee-slapping moments. Lines were delivered as though they were being read off of cue cards for the first time, and they sounded like they’d been written by someone who had never been a part of a conversation before but thought this was probably how humans would react in a high stress environment. One huge problem came from the fact that there was zero motivation to care about these people. Sure, they were on this island, and presumably, they would age rapidly and perish, whether of a sped up illness or “natural” causes, and that was sad. That was the extent of my feelings.
All of these groups had backstories that were supposed to probably make them interesting or sympathetic, but it all fell so flat, as one would expect when dialogue is just shouted out in the air without any real correlation to whatever the previous person had said. Believe me when I say I wanted to like this movie, but the preview promised way more than Old could ever deliver. Many reviews and ratings I’ve seen discuss the deep commentary on life that Shyamalan is providing through this movie, but all I could focus on was how disappointed I felt in every aspect of the production. Some camera shots and angles were baffling and seemed to have been accidental, there was hardly any chemistry between any combination of characters (except, uncomfortably, between two actors that were playing aged-up versions of a pair of siblings) and the payoff infuriated me, which, in the spirit of avoiding spoilers, I won’t go into more detail about. After many hours of thinking about this movie, the most praise I can give it is that it is, in fact, a feature film.