Old (2021)

The Fourteenth film in the career of director M Night Shyamalan who has made some excellence like The Sixth Sence (1999) Unbreakable (2000) and Split (2016). While he has also made bad things The Happening (2008) The Last Airbender (2010) and After Earth (2013). Where does Old fall in his cinematic career?. Based on a French graphic novel called Sandcastle, we are introduced to a Cappa family, Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) Prisca (Vicky Krieps) and there children Trent and Maddox. They arrive at a lovely island get away (which Prisca has found online) looking to enjoy a holiday as a family. Shortly after getting there the resort manager suggested they travel to this very remote isolated beach, billing it as a once in a life time experience. Intrigued the family agrees and is taken to the beach, when we are introduced to the others going with them. Charles (Rufus Sewell) a doctor, his trophy wife Chrystal (Abbey Lee) and there daughter Kara. Also there is married couple Jarin (Ken Leung) and Patricia (Nikki Amuka Bird) along with a rapper known as Mid Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre). Everything seems normal at the beach in the beginning with everyone enjoying what it has to offer. Soon however strange things begin to happen as the children begin to age at rapid rates. This keeps happening but then we notice everyone starts ageing up. Everyone must work together to find out why is this happening and how can they escape this beach.

While given the trailers i had seen prior to the film were interested was not exactly sure what was expecting from this. After watching the film have mixed thoughts as it has good acting, tense moments, and themes, but its also poorly shot, kinda sad and not really a good time to watch. But going back to seeing a few trailers of this before its release, think certain visuals shown there could have made a bigger impact had you seen then for the first time during the film. The acting is all round generally good, particularly when your feeling the pain of time lost with your family members within such a short period. Everyone still has to work with a mixed bag of dialog, some hit, some fail and a lot of dialog expansion which could and would have been better for us to work out ourselves as the audience. While not a horror film as such there are some creepy tense moments, body horror related to the characters of Charles and Chrystal, while as mentioned the horror of losing time away from family. While i said early on the film is shot badly, that,s not all of it its more so when quite often characters are shown blurry, not in frame at all or overly close up but not in focus. This was rather off putting as felt was missing out on moments that were hidden. This film does make you think, but is not a fun nor light hearted watch and not something your probably going to rush back to quickly if at all. While you can appreciate certain aspects, its got a lot of faults. The twist ending which is an M Night staple is rather underwhelming as it does give context to what we just watched and makes you think what side would you be on. But doesn’t make you want to revisit in the style of The Sixth Sence or even Unbreakable. Yet there is a good bit of foreshadowing in the beginning when a young Trent asks other resort guests there name and job. So this is by no means a bad film as it offers good acting, an interesting premise and deep themes. Yet it fails with blurry camera work, overly explained dialog and not having that re-watchable enjoyment factor. So its very much a middle of the road film in M Night,s career and in the currant cinema offerings in general.