M Night Shyamalan is, well, maybe “controversial” isn’t the right word. As a director, he had some early success with admittedly fantastic movies like The Sixth Sense and (in my opinion) Unbreakable. But he became known for his twist endings, and that led to some, rather, awkward at best movies. Sure, he has made some fun ones since then, but it seems as if he’ll have something with at least an intriguing concept as seen in the trailers but that more often than not falls flat in execution. He is a talented director in that he is very much capable of creating eerie moods in his horror films, but as a writer, there’s always something…off in his work, particularly when he forces a twist at the end. Sometimes something good will still come out, like with Split, but those may be more the exception than the rule.
Anyway, he has a new one out now called Old.
The Cappa family are on vacation at a luxury resort. Mom Pirsca (Vicky Krieps) and dad Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) are on the verge of splitting and wanted to give their kids one last vacation as a family before they tell the two of them, but daughter Maddox and her kid brother Trent more or less already know that. However, an opportunity arises for them to visit a private, secluded beach inside a wildlife reserve. A couple other families are there in the form of heart surgeon Charles (Rufus Sewell), his mother Agnes (Kathleen Chalfant), his possible trophy wife Chrystal (Abbey Lee), their young daughter Kara, and a small dog; nurse Jarin (Ken Leung) and his psychiatrist wife Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird); and a well-known rapper with the stage name Mid-Size Sedan (Aaron Pierre) who came earlier with a young woman he met at the resort that swam off before the others arrived. However, it doesn’t take long for the group to find out there’s something strange about this beach. Time flows differently and mostly faster, allowing small cuts to heal quickly but also aging everyone on the beach. It’s most noticeable with the children as they very quickly grow up, but it’s happening to the adults (and the dog) too. It just doesn’t affect hair and nails for some reason.
Also, if anyone tries to leave the beach, they black out and pop back out where they started no matter how they try to get where they’re going. Essentially, the group is trapped on this beach until one by one they all die of old age.
Now, that in and of itself is a hell of a premise. How did Shyamalan screw it up? Let’s set aside the cornucopia of accents in his main characters where Mexican Bernal and Luxembourgian Krieps have noticeable accents that neither of their children have. That’s a minor thing I can overlook. His casting isn’t even terrible either. While multiple actors play the kids at various moments, we do have Alex Wolff as Trent and Thomasin McKenzie as Maddox for most of the movie. Those are two very strong young actors, especially McKenzie. They almost acquit themselves well of what happens.
See, the problem isn’t the casting or even the direction as Shyamalan does have some nifty camera tricks to show off. He’ll sweep a camera one way and then come back to show some effect of the rapid aging. Very few deaths occur on camera, and the ones that do are either appropriately horrifying or oddly touching within the context of the narrative. No, the problem here is the script as Shyamalan writes dialogue that suggests he’s never heard a real human being talk before. It’s awkward as hell and very few members of his cast seem capable of speaking it in a realistic manner. Sewell manages, Bernal has his moments, and both Wolff and McKenzie, possibly because they got the most to work with, both do quite decently despite the inconsistencies of their characters as the movie seems incapable of deciding how mature the pair are even as they grow physically older. The rest are either wooden or forgettable. Leung in particular comes off as especially stiff despite the fact he seems be the one who maybe figures out how everything works (the movie never really says, so that theory is your best guess), and I saw that guy spit out some incredibly silly dialogue on TV’s LOST, so the actor isn’t the problem. It’s the material and the way Shyamalan coached his cast. Maybe it just takes the right actor to pronounce Shyamalan’s dialogue in a realistic way, but most of these people don’t have it.
Now, I would be remiss I suppose in failing to address the twist. All Shyamalan movies have something like one, and this movie is perhaps no exception, but it felt like the one at the end of Glass where it isn’t really much of a twist so much as an explanation that maybe explains only part of the movie. However, like so much else in Old, the movie is just ridiculous, filled with characters that don’t really speak or act like human beings, caught in a trap that they seemingly can’t escape. Get the right actor in a Shyamalan movie, someone like Jame McAvoy, who can say his lines without sounding too wooden and maybe find a way for people to act like people, and there’s a chance Shyamalan can turn in something that may be crazy but is at least fun. Old doesn’t really do that.
Grade: D
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