Old (2021)
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
A group of families on a tropical holiday discover that the secluded beach where they are staying is somehow causing them to age rapidly – reducing their entire lives into a single day.
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28 films that influenced Old
What critics say influenced Old
Like most genre fans, I was intrigued and hooked early on by the eerie “body horror” and “psychological terror” concept—in fact, it reminded me a bit of Stephen King’s Thinner , which was funny, terrifying, and thought-provoking.
The characters realize they have something in common, Agatha Christie And Then There Were None style, sure, but there is a reason why the story of a group of strangers stranded into their doom is so timeless and classic, all the way back to the Queen of Mystery herself.
Rather than delve into the ripe existential phobias that are growing around its cast like coconuts, Old is content with mostly coasting on being a Fantasy Island episode that adapts And Then There Were None —complete with a surprise killer running around.
And, while I'm asking questions, why is Sewell's character obsessed with remembering the title of the western that starred Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson ("The Missouri Breaks," although I don't remember it well enough to know what it has to do with "Old")?
Distractions abound, including an abrupt pregnancy and Sewell's character's fixation on a Marlon Brando-Jack Nicholson vehicle he just can't seem to put his finger on (it's "The Missouri Breaks"), which make "Old" play more silly than suspenseful.
And another character who is slowly succumbing to some mental illness repeatedly asks what the movie with Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson is — it’s The Missouri Breaks , by the way.
…stare at him blankly, not caring a whit about his suffering, as some of us in the audience whisper furtively, “The Missouri Breaks.”
Under the circumstances, the cast do what they can with the sketchily delineated characters and limited scope for development; Sewell, in particular, suffers, particularly because Shyamalan saddles him with a misguided bit of business involving “The Missouri Breaks.”
He says he was inspired by Australian classic Walkabout and Picnic at Hanging Rock .
Employing voyeuristic tracking shots, intrusive close ups and a Picnic At Hanging Rock vibe, his camerawork only adds to the uncertainty.
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When Shyamalan leans into effects work, he goes all the way: a surgery scene is the most fantastically gruesome since Prometheus, and a late scene in a cave recalls the wince-inducing madness of vintage Sam Raimi.
Also affecting are Embeth Davidtz, ("Schindler's List") and Emun Elliott ("Prometheus") as the oldest version of the siblings.
As with the revelation of why folks were killing themselves in The Happening , Old spends far too much time setting up a rationalization and an inevitable third act twist, which plays a bit like if at the end of The Birds , Alfred Hitchcock revealed the title creatures had been trained by a mad scientist down the shoreline.
Having made his bones with The Sixth Sense back in ’99 he had had a run of successful high concept thrillers — Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002), The Village (2004) — that were commercially successful even if the critical notes began to dip.
It’s a concept that could’ve led Shyamalan back to his previous glories; his best films, The Sixth Sense , Unbreakable , and Signs , all use highly commercial genres to delve into very interior character struggles.
The 50-year-old M. Night Shyamalan (“The Sixth Sense”/”Signs”), the writer and director, has a Hitchcock-like cameo as the hotel van driver in his latest.
Things have been looking up for two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan who began his career with 1999’s The Sixth Sense and gave us decent scares with 2002’s Signs before his career careened off course with Lady in the Water , The Happening (wind as a villain is never a good choice), and After Earth .
Mirroring the same career slump he experienced after the 1-3 punch of The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000) and Signs (2002) with such misfires as The Lady in the Wate r (2006), The Happening (2008), The Last Airbender (2010) and After Earth (2013), Old is coming off the back-end of such recent hits as The Visit (2015) and Split (2016) – seen as something of a career resurgence for the contentious director – once again bringing into question his strength as a filmmaker and storyteller.
Shyamalan made such a strong impression with his 1999 breakout hit, The Sixth Sense , the artistic success that was Unbreakable , and the alien invasion summer blockbuster Signs , that the subsequent turn toward lesser well-received films (and outright bombs) has turned him into a director everyone wants to be able to pin down as something.
Also affecting are Embeth Davidtz, ("Schindler's List") and Emun Elliott ("Prometheus") as the oldest version of the siblings.
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The writer-director of interesting films ranging from 1999’s ‘The Sixth Sense” to 2017’s “Split” has turned it into “Old,” one of his most inspired efforts in the last decades.
Having made his bones with The Sixth Sense back in ’99 he had had a run of successful high concept thrillers — Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002), The Village (2004) — that were commercially successful even if the critical notes began to dip.
The 50-year-old M. Night Shyamalan (“The Sixth Sense”/”Signs”), the writer and director, has a Hitchcock-like cameo as the hotel van driver in his latest.
For the last two decades, writer/director M. Night Shyamalan has been desperately attempting to recapture the lightning in a bottle of 1999’s pop culture phenomenon The Sixth Sense with varied results.
Things have been looking up for two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan who began his career with 1999’s The Sixth Sense and gave us decent scares with 2002’s Signs before his career careened off course with Lady in the Water , The Happening (wind as a villain is never a good choice), and After Earth .
Mirroring the same career slump he experienced after the 1-3 punch of The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000) and Signs (2002) with such misfires as The Lady in the Wate r (2006), The Happening (2008), The Last Airbender (2010) and After Earth (2013), Old is coming off the back-end of such recent hits as The Visit (2015) and Split (2016) – seen as something of a career resurgence for the contentious director – once again bringing into question his strength as a filmmaker and storyteller.
Given how erratic Shyamalan’s filmography has been, this is probably the best and most sustained work he’s done since 2015’s The Visit , though the inevitable twist in the tale delivered here, while good, can’t match it.
From The Visit to Split and its ambitiously hamstrung followup, Glass , Shyamalan would combine the most entertaining aspects of his failures with his signature high-concepts to a renewed verve.
Mirroring the same career slump he experienced after the 1-3 punch of The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000) and Signs (2002) with such misfires as The Lady in the Wate r (2006), The Happening (2008), The Last Airbender (2010) and After Earth (2013), Old is coming off the back-end of such recent hits as The Visit (2015) and Split (2016) – seen as something of a career resurgence for the contentious director – once again bringing into question his strength as a filmmaker and storyteller.
And to your initial point, I too thought Shyamalan had outgrown his “big twist” crutch, which, in his post- Village , pre- Split career wasteland has really only resurfaced in the miserable The Visit .
But then a funny thing happened — he turned around and did The Visit (2015), a little five-million-dollar horror flick for Blumhouse, and it was pretty great.
After several loathed efforts had more or less landed him in director’s jail, Shyamalan borrowed $5 million against his own home to make The Visit , a found-footage fright flick about crazy old people.