OLD: Another self-indulgent dud from M Night Shyamalan.

Rob Ryan

(spoilers)

If someone were to describe the concept for Old in a dinner conversation with family or friends as part of an idea for a film that they've come up with on the spot, the response amongst those group people would more than likely be encouraging that person to write it down. There comes the difficult question of how that idea would be fully formed into a satisfying narrative. It would also face the person writing to answer many questions. How do you conclude a narrative with a concept this intriguing? Do you find a cause to this phenomenon, or do you leave that open for interpretation? what are the characters and how do they respond to this seemingly impossible thing involving in front of them? Unfortunately in the case of M Night Shyamalan's Old, the final result is over 100 minutes of wasted potential, plagued with his usual narrative and filmmaking trappings that have largely tainted his work for the past decade and a half.

The good idea: A family of four visits a tropical island for one last family vacation before Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps) break it to their son Trent and daughter Maddox on their decision to divorce due to their ongoing marriage problems, something they don't hide very well due to them bickering loud enough for their children to hear in the other room. One day they are recommended by the resort manager (Gustaf Hammarsten) to visit a secluded beach that is said to be very beautiful, Along with many other holidaymakers, including doctor Charles (Rufus Sewell) his wife Crystal (Abbey Lee)

mother Agness (Kathleen Chalfant) and daughter Kyra. along with an epileptic psychologist Patrica (Nikki Amuka-Bird) and her husband Jarin (Ken Lung) who join them later on.

All these people soon get more than they bargained for, as what start's as a discovery of a dead body on the side of the beach, escalates to something much more terrifying as the children start to age rapidly, Charles's mother dies suddenly, and when a famous rapper named "Mid Sized Sedan" (Arron Pierre) is slashed by Charles with his knife due to his suspicion of murdering the woman discovered early on, his wounds heal themselves instantly. But that's not all, any attempt to leave the beach leads to the characters having blackouts and ending up back where they started. and of course, there is no phone reception. Everyone then concludes that they are trapped on a beach that possesses the power to age them and the adults have 7 hours to live, whereas the children have a full 24 hours.

This isn't the first time that Shyamalan has dealt with bizarre concepts, his 2007 camp fest, "The Happening" was about an airborne gas that causes people to commit suicide in gruesome and brutal ways. Whereas that was a purely original work of his own doing, Old to my surprise is an adaptation of a French graphic novel which up until this film's existence remained fairly obscure. but a quick google search led me to discover that the only thing that is similar to both novel and movie is the core idea and that's it. Beyond that, there is nothing to differentiate between the two, if anything the graphic novel from what I've read has a much different conclusion to how the characters respond to their situation which I would have liked to have seen. In the graphic novel, the characters we see accept their fate early on after learning that there is no way to escape or beat the force causing them to age, with some of them committing suicide and other's choosing to let the hours pass by.

In Old, however, Shymalan is more interested in creating one tense scenario after the next. rather than letting there be any room to breathe in between the shocking moment's which in turn would have given more room for character development than what we get in the film as most of the characters are purely there to be picked off one by one. The most you ever learn about them is their name and occupation and which member of the group has a medical condition. The only reason you know those first two things about these people in the first place is a scene early one when the two children are running around on a separate beach asking the characters their names and occupation, which may seem like Shymalan's attempt to capture activities of a young child on a beach but there doesn't seem to be any purpose beyond conveying information just so we the audience learn about who they are and what they do. It would have been great if that information had been used to complement how they respond to their situation, giving some level of ingenuity to help themselves and others around them, but with the exception of one or two scenes and some passing lines of dialogue, this is the extent the character development ends.

All we are left is a bunch of crazy sequences that don't do anything to further the narrative other than for pointless shock value. One of which involves 15-year-old Trent (Alex Wolf) and Kyra (Eliza Scanlen) who through the ageing process somehow discover sex which results in Kyra being impregnated leading to a birthing process that ends tragically. Another one of which involves Prisca and her ongoing cancer troubles which through the forces of the beach reveals itself in the form of a giant ball in her stomach, leading Charles to perform a quick incision while everyone keeps the wound open before it heals itself and other tense sequences where the characters try to make escape attempts which leads to the same conclusion every time.

While these sequences do require the attention of the audience and keep the film from being anywhere close to boring, they lack any sort of tension because I didn't care about any of the characters and whether or not they lived or died but more so because the conclusions of each sequence are exactly the same, The most logical step by this point would be to take the approach of the graphic novel where the characters accept their fate and try to live their final days together as best as they can rather than try to find any answers to the mystery or any more futile attempts at escape.

Instead, Shymalan tries to have it both ways, where after everyone else has died, Guy and Prisca have grown old to the point where their hearing and sight begins to deteriorate. They apologise to each other with some corny dialogue which is meant to be sad and romantic, while a 16-year old Maddox (Thomasin Mckenzie) sings one last lullaby, something that the film blatantly sets up in the very first scene, who would have thought that a dialogue scene in the film's opening that has the mother saying "I can't wait to hear your voice when you get older" ends with the daughter finally gaining to confidence to sing because she is now older. After a brief final moment together the children now reach their 50s by morning and through the power of contrived plotting and a meaningless twist ending that over explains the mystery, find an answer which may lead to their key to escape.

The cast for this film is surprisingly stacked. Most of which have been served in much better films that are much better thought out. Hear however Shaymalan's screenplay serves them poorly, the film's clunky dialogue leaves them to deliver some of their lines very awkwardly, the worst example is Vicky Krieps, who delivers her lines in a very monotone expression which doesn't give the impression of a person who is aware of her surrounding's and she remains exactly the same the entire film and her only negative expression in the runtime never extends itself beyond being slightly concerned. Not everyone is completely let down, the younger actors are very committed and other's do a better job delivering such weird lines with a straight face but the only emotions that were felt by me were sheer confusion and frustration as good actor's who have deserved way better get let down by such sloppy material.

Many people have already pointed out the film's cinematography and its showy and awkward nature. This is a common occurrence in Shymalan's direction throughout his films and it has been used more appropriately in the past. Hear however as par for the course in his recent work. he seems to be more concerned about wanting the audience to notice his style rather than the style complement the emotions of the story and characters. The camera pans around in 180-degree circles for no reason. there are extreme wide-angle close-ups involving character's talking and many other awkward examples where character's and their faces appear cropped and the rest of their body out of frame. This doesn't mean that the cinematography is bad, if this style was used in a much better film then it would have been more appropriately used, Instead, these ambitious shots feel out of place and don't complement the tense mood it's trying to deliver, It's not so much it's bad cinematography but it doesn't work for this film.

Shymalan is one frustrating filmmaker. What started out extremely promising carrier soon regressed into one self-indulgent dud after the next and Old seems like another one to add to the pile of the ever-growing list. It's not without merit, if anything I would rather have him direct someone else's screenplay accompanied by his direction and style. but in the case of Old, the characters are paper-thin, the dialogue is awkward and unnatural, the mystery is overexplained deflating any rewatch value at all and the acting and filmmaking are inconsistent in quality. Even the rules of how this phenomenon works leaves more questions than answers, like how can wounds heal themselves one minute but when Charles stabs the rapper multiple times killing him, the wounds this time don't heal? There's too much wrong with Old that prevents me from recommending it for any reason other than an ironic one. It's not boring but as a horror/thriller it fails at both fronts. If anything, more giggles and snickers were felt. At least that's one thing that hasn't changed about his films.

Rating: 3/10

Old is available in UK cinemas now.