Old - Movie Review

This week we're going to be talking about M. Night Shyamalan. This guy is probably the most perplexing director in Hollywood right now. He has made award winning films like The Sixth Sense, but also some incredibly awful films like The Last Airbender and The Happening. Last year I actually talked about The Happening and how, while being a terrible film, it's also secretly brilliant because it's a film that mocks horror genre in a great way. In the end Shyamalan is a very mixed and confusing bag and it's hard to recognize if he's a genius, a dumbass, or a mix of both. One thing is for sure though is that he's dedicated to making films that are out of the box. When pitching Lady in the Water to Disney he apparently yelled at them, calling them unoriginal and storming out of the room, before going to Warner Brothers to sell his vision. So this week it's time to see if Shyamalan is indeed a genius or not in his latest film: Old.

Old is about a small family who go on vacation to a resort and are taken to a secluded beach with another family. Things are all going swell for a while until they find a dead body of a woman. They, along with a few other characters, try to escape the beach, but are mysteriously trapped inside. Worse than that though is that everyone is suddenly aging rapidly on the beach. For every hour on the beach, two years go by for the trapped vacationers. But how will be they be able to escape the beach and get back to resort before time runs out? I will be going into some spoilers in this review because almost any Shyamalan movie is going to require a bit in order to explain things.

This is a very interesting concept and one I was eager to see on the screen. The trailers sold me on how frightening it would be to grow old so quickly. Watching it in theaters there were multiple moments that made me squirm in my seat and pull my shirt put to cover part of my face. To trapped and watching yourself and the people you love (especially your children) grow old so fast is scary! Like really scary. In the trailers there is a scene of a older (who was originally six when the movie starts) suddenly becoming pregnant and going through all the stages of pregnancy in less than half an hour. That scene was horrifying because even though I'm a man seeing all those changes happen to fast for a young woman is fucked up. I was so uncomfortable in the right way and I was absolutely scared for her. These children have suddenly the bodies of adults, but the minds of their original child selves and they're going through so many changes so fast it's giving me shivers thinking about it.

It's not just those fast changes that really worked with the film because by watching the film closely you can see as the film goes on that the already adult characters are slowly growing older. Same rate of growth, but since they're adults the changes are less noticeable. Even so I still noticed that they slowly were getting more wrinkly, their hair was getting whiter/ greyer after every couple of scenes, some of their senses begin to dull or totally disappear at certain points. That's really good attention to detail. The practical effects and makeup used to accomplish this was very, very good. Plus the use of time speeding up sometimes did more than age a person, sometimes it also did things to the body which we normally consider good, but in certain moments of the film were very bad. There were also some moments of aging that I won't spoil that I didn't expect, but fit very well for the characters of the film. Shaymalan really thought hard on how the world he was creating was going to affect the people of the movie.

An element of the film that I mostly liked in the film. It did captured a lot of the tension in certain moments, like seeing the kids first grow up where we're close the kids, but their faces aren't fully shown and it just makes us, the audience, feel uneasy. There were some also long tracking shots that kept going to raise the tension even further. Mike Gioulakis did the cinematography for the film and he's done films like Split and Glass (both Shyamalan films), so I know he's good behind the camera. It still has flaws though, with the camera sometimes cutting off certain parts of the body that should be showing. But overall I kind of liked the cinematography of the movie.

I have two major issues with the film though, problems that really tank the movie from something that could have been really damn good to something kind of... meh. The first of these is the dialogue. The first pieces of dialogue in the film instantly brought down my smile. It wasn't terrible, like I wasn't watching a Tommy Wiseau film, but Shyamalan cannot for the life of him write realistic/ believable dialogue. Almost every film Shyamalan has made has had multiple moments of dialogue that are just... weird. So I was of course worried that this would also happen in Old and sadly through most of the film the dialogue is odd to the point of being silly. Like there is a moment where main mother character, played by Vicky Krieps, talks to doctor on the beach about how she's not crazy because she works at a museum and they have to listen to her because she's not crazy. Like... Really? Did nobody think of questioning that? Shyamalan needs to start hiring somebody to go over his script and just redo the dialogue for every film.

My other big issue of the movie is the acting. As genius as Shyamalan can be with his concepts I don't think he's the strongest/ wisest directors when it comes to getting his actors into character. I mean think about how he memorably made Mark Wahlberg, academy award winning actor, go, "What? Nooooo..." after being accused of possibly going to murder somebody in their sleep in The Happening. Throughout most of this movie the acting is bad, as if the actors were seriously told not the give their best performances. Vicky Krieps had such terrible acting for most of the film and her first line of dialogue felt like a lead weight was suddenly dropped on me. It was a slap in the face to remind me of the director's previous works and how they often fail in terms of acting. Most of the time, with the exception of James McAvoy being utterly perfect as Kevin Wendell Crumb (and all his multiple personalities) in Split.

When you combine the terrible acting and unbelievably bad dialogue together you have a concoction that is bound to make audiences cringe. Actors are most often the main cinematic elements that push a film's plot, so having them act silly while spouting outrageous lines will prove very damaging for a film's reputation. Saying this though I thought the casting choices were good because when the scenes were serious and/ or emotional I could see glimpses of the greatness this film could have. Near the end of the film there is a moment between two of the parents that I really, really liked because it feel the emotions coming out of the scene and it almost got me teary eyed. But sadly that's all I saw, glimpses of greatness. Also the child acting was better than what I was expecting, the kids (and their grown up versions) do a great job as well.

On a final note everyone is probably thinking, "Is there a twist to the movie? Every M. Night Shyamalan movie has a twist to it." Yes, yes there is and I kind of liked it. It was believable to an extent and there were elements to it that I thought were brilliant. The original story of this movie is based on a French graphic novel called Sandcastle and from what I heard the original source material ended on a much darker note. I don't mind this change very much because I think either a dark ending or a happy ending works for this film. There's also some good hints as to what the twist of the film was and while it reminded me of the very disappointing twist to Glass I felt this one was better executed.

Old is an odd film that isn't terrible, but I not great. It has a very unique concept to it and bringing that concept to life was well done. But sadly the acting and dialogue are mostly poor and turn an excellent idea into a poor executed one. I still enjoyed the movie more than I disliked it, but there needs to be somebody on hand to work on Shyamalan's scripts (or at least his dialogue). I like how daring he can be, but you cannot do everything yourself Shyamalan. Team up with Jordan Peele man, he's turned out some great horror movies in the past few years! Even with my problems with the film though I am glad I bought tickets to the film because I want to support more original content and take a few risks for films.

Tentative Score: 6/10

Also yes, Shaymalan does play a character in the film (like he does with all his films).