Old
“Old” might be the most frustrated I’ve been with M. Night Shyamalan since he “came back” with “The Visit.” While yes, there’s much in “Glass” that was kind of a mess, I can forgive that because it’s an interesting, and thematically interesting, capper to one of the most unusual movie trilogies of the modern era. “Old” has some of his most interesting ideas since “The Sixth Sense” and “Signs,” but there’s something just off about the way he delivers them in this adaptation of the graphic novel, Sandcastle, that just irritates me. To dive completely into those ways would involve spoilers, but we’ll see how I feel about things by the time I reach the end as to whether I divulge them.
We begin with a family arriving at a luxurious resort with a tropical view. The family is husband Guy (Gael García Bernal); wife Prisca (Vicky Krieps); daughter Maddox (Alexa Swinton) and son Trent (Nolan River). They are greeted by smiling hotel service, with specialty drinks for Guy and Prisca, and they arrive at their room, which is amazing. But Guy and Prisca are having tension; they want this to be a special trip for Maddox and Trent before their lives change forever. The next day, they are told by the hotel manager (Gustaf Hammarsten) of a private beach they can go to for a special excursion- they only inform a select few of this. The family goes, with another family (played by Rufus Sewell, Abbey Lee, Mikaya Fisher and Kathleen Chalfant) going as well, and a couple (Ken Leung and Nikki Amuka-Bird) joining later. They are enjoying things until a dead body floats up against Trent, and the only suspect is a rapper (Aaron Pierre) seems to be cowering near the rocks. One and one make two, right? When Sewell’s character’s mother starts having issues, and the kids seem to be aging rapidly, more questions than answers arise.
If you’ve seen the trailers for the film, you already know part of the hook of the film- people getting older on a beach- but what the trailers don’t necessarily reveal is how Shyamalan, thematically, makes this compelling material. Shyamalan’s best films involve personal arcs that involve overcoming fear and anxiety, and “Old’s” central conceit involves characters whom are afraid of aging, afraid of losing something, and afraid of nobody really knowing who they are. This is rich material to mine, and is all the way up my alley in how the characters react to what is happening to them. That makes it more infuriating that the performances feel…off. Even reliable actors in this film do not feel as though they understand the way people would react to, well, anything. They don’t feel human. Some moments come through (I think Pierre probably gives the strongest performance), but even when Alex Wolff and Thomasin McKenzie come in as older versions of Trent and Maddox, the acting largely feels unnatural. What’s disappointing is that, largely, the characters feel like they were written well, but the way the actors are directed, you wouldn’t know it.
While I don’t think it is a completely strong effort from Shyamalan, “Old” is one I can see myself returning to. The ideas explored are fascinating, and his craft (namely, how cinematographer Mike Gioulakis shoots the film, and he and editor Brett M. Reed make choices in where to cut) feels more adventurous than I’ve ever seen from him before, especially on the beach. Throughout the film, Trent and Maddox seem to notice something at the top of one of the rock formations- maybe someone watching- that leads to a reveal that feels like it might have been something more if, like in “The Cabin in the Woods,” it had been part of the narrative as a whole as opposed to just a third act “twist.” Just at the end, it feels like it’s detached from the rest of the narrative for some sort of “explanation,” but within the framework of the film, something much more sinister could have been explored in greater detail. That’s not necessarily the type of filmmaker Shyamalan is, though; sometimes, I almost wish it was.
