OLD (2021 | USA | 108 minutes | M. Night Shyamalan)
It almost appears hyperbolic to say Old is M. Night Shyamalan’s best film in decades, but he’s produced more shit over the past twenty years than what can be safely extracted through Jair Bolsonaro’s nose. It’s been a wild fall from grace where the director was telling magazine writers after the success of his breakthrough The Sixth Sense that he figured out the formula for making hit movies, and then he basically turned into Max Bialystock after his follow-up Unbreakable (his best movie, IMO). After a series of box office bombs, people began booing when his name was shown in trailers.
That’s not to say that Old isn’t ridiculous. It very much is. It’s camp, but it leans into it.
Old centers around a mysterious, secluded beach that makes people age rapidly, about one year every 30 minutes. We don’t ever learn why the beach is this way, but we learn that Big Pharma uses it to test the efficacy of their drugs without having to do any of the annoying waiting. A pregnancy here lasts about twenty minutes. This group, the seventy-third trial group, includes Gael Garcia Bernal, an arrogant doctor (played by Rufus Sewell, but you’d be forgiven for confusing him with Jude Law), and a rapper that goes by Mid-Sized Sedan, played by Aaron Pierre. At least one person in each party has an underlying medical condition, which is why they’re selected and tricked into going to the remote beach that is basically impossible to escape.
There are a lot of things I really liked about this movie. First, the beach is the main character, and it should be. From the picturesque beauty to the slowly unfolding horrors it reveals, this is what I was interested in. I include the coral and waves in that description. I didn’t find much investment into the human characters, and that was fine. I just wanted to see what the beach would do next. The acting is also quite good, especially with the dialogue that is often overwrought.
I don’t want to reveal any details of the surprises at the end, but I do wish the ending left a bit more ambiguity about its resolution. Wrapping up too neatly, I think, slowed down a lot of the momentum the movie built up. It’s an enjoyable ride, but I wish I was thinking more about mortality and ethics instead of thinking “yeah, I suppose that mostly makes sense.” Billed as a horror movie by some, it didn’t feel all that “scary” to me. More like a well-done episode of “The Twilight Zone.”
Even so, I hope this is a good step for Shyamalan. Back in 2000, this is what Esquire wrote about him:
… When asked to name his role models, Shyamalan’s mind spins past the giants of the movie industry. “It’s Jordan,” he says without hesitation. “Michael Jordan.” Like Jordan, Shyamalan wants to redefine and then dominate the game. He wants to make it look effortless. And he wants to get paid more than anyone else.
That M. Night Shyamalan proved it was possible to get higher than Tony Montana from one’s own supply.
Old works because Shyamalan doesn’t allow his ambition to surpass his talent (and the camera work and pacing are excellent here). It’s a good movie, and I was pleased with it. It’s enjoyable because it doesn’t try to reinvent cinema, it just tells a good story creatively. May M. Night Shyamalan always just be good enough.
Old is currently playing in theaters.
(Header image via Universal Pictures.)