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.
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.
The Shyamalan film Old most reminded me of was The Happening , the director’s gloriously clunky, weirdly violent thriller about killer trees.
From 2008’s The Happening all the way to 2013’s After Earth , Shyamalan would spend more than half a decade churning out schlocky duds, with the disastrous mega-budget bomb The Last Airbender as a centerpiece.
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.
Landing somewhere between The Happening and The Village on the Shyamalanometer of Narrative Gimmickry, M. Night Shyamalan’s Old places a dozen or so travelers together on a remote beach, then watches them live the rest of their lives in a day.
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.
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.
After a horrific trio of The Happening , The Last Airbender and After Earth , he surprised us all with the chillingly effective Split , only to disappoint again with the convoluted Unbreakable cross-over Glass .
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.
He burst onto the scene with his Oscar-nominated The Sixth Sense , followed in quick succession by hits Signs and Unbreakable.
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.
Landing somewhere between The Happening and The Village on the Shyamalanometer of Narrative Gimmickry, M. Night Shyamalan’s Old places a dozen or so travelers together on a remote beach, then watches them live the rest of their lives in a day.
Occasionally he’s come close, as with The Visit and Split ; too often he’s missed the mark by a wide margin with duds such as The Village , The Happening and, of course, Lady in the Water .
And the melancholy grief that prevails over the severely underrated The Village is remarkable.
And yet Shyamalan’s very silly new movie — his best since “The Village,” but still a pale imitation of the slow-burn psychological thrillers that once earned him modern history’s most iconic Newsweek cover — isn’t nearly as fraught-provoking as its nature would suggest.
Though he directed two films prior, his breakout movie, The Sixth Sense , came out in 1999, and ever since he has been entertaining us with films like Signs , Unbreakable / Split / Glass , and The Village .
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.
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.
Occasionally he’s come close, as with The Visit and Split ; too often he’s missed the mark by a wide margin with duds such as The Village , The Happening and, of course, Lady in the Water .
That return was underlined with his next effort, the effective thriller Split .
Fortunately, time has been kind to Shyamalan’s image, and recent hits like Split have led to a reappraisal of the director’s singular (if admittedly uneven) filmography.
From 2008’s The Happening all the way to 2013’s After Earth , Shyamalan would spend more than half a decade churning out schlocky duds, with the disastrous mega-budget bomb The Last Airbender as a centerpiece.
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.
After a horrific trio of The Happening , The Last Airbender and After Earth , he surprised us all with the chillingly effective Split , only to disappoint again with the convoluted Unbreakable cross-over Glass .
While Shyamalan’s films have been quite stale as of late (we’re not going to talk about The Happening , After Earth, or The Last Airbender ), Old is a film that is a compelling watch from beginning to end.
Then big-budget, phoned-in tosh like The Last Airbender (2010) and After Earth (2013) — which gives The Happening some real competition for bottom-of-the-league status.
Films like The Sixth Sense , Unbreakable , and Signs earned him immense praise early on, while efforts like The Lady in the Water , The Happening , and The Last Airbender saw him lose favor among general audiences and fanatics at large.
From 2008’s The Happening all the way to 2013’s After Earth , Shyamalan would spend more than half a decade churning out schlocky duds, with the disastrous mega-budget bomb The Last Airbender as a centerpiece.
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.
After a horrific trio of The Happening , The Last Airbender and After Earth , he surprised us all with the chillingly effective Split , only to disappoint again with the convoluted Unbreakable cross-over Glass .
While Shyamalan’s films have been quite stale as of late (we’re not going to talk about The Happening , After Earth, or The Last Airbender ), Old is a film that is a compelling watch from beginning to end.
Then big-budget, phoned-in tosh like The Last Airbender (2010) and After Earth (2013) — which gives The Happening some real competition for bottom-of-the-league status.
It’s not hard to imagine why since the book is almost tailor-made for the Shyamalan treatment with its mysteriously secluded locale; ensemble cast mired in a tense, supernatural scenario seemingly outside of their control; and a science fiction writer walking readers through hypotheses similarly to Bob Balaban‘s Harry Farber in Lady in the Water.
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 .
With the widely panned and self-congratulatory Lady in the Water and a series of ego-driven documentaries - The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan and The Man Who Heard Voices - the director’s acclaim soon soured into derision and backlash.
Occasionally he’s come close, as with The Visit and Split ; too often he’s missed the mark by a wide margin with duds such as The Village , The Happening and, of course, Lady in the Water .
While there have been the mild highs of films like Signs and Split , there have also been the crushing lows of disasters like The Happening and Lady in the Water .
I can understand trying to sniff out whether this is one of his good ones, like The Sixth Sense or Signs , or one of his bad ones, like Lady in the Water or The Last Airbender.
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.
The 2019 stinker “Glass” suggested his return to form was short lived.
The same can’t be said for the Split follow-up Glass , a dour misfire that gave fans the Unbreakable sequel they didn’t want.
Old is based on a French graphic novel published in 2011, and Shyamalan began developing it shortly after wrapping 2019’s Glass, but it’s difficult not to read it as his “COVID film.”
It’s about as frustrating as the end of Glass (2019), his last film, which worked to subvert the expectations of audiences looking for a traditional superhero ending but kept going so far past that moment as to become ruinous to the whole.
Glass (2019) came, and while it wasn’t on par with its predecessors, it capped off the loose Unbreakable trilogy and, hell, I liked it.
Also affecting are Embeth Davidtz, ("Schindler's List") and Emun Elliott ("Prometheus") as the oldest version of the siblings.
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One moment brings Tales From The Hood to mind, so I was howling while leaning back in horror.
Ultimately, Old is like Jaws without the horror and suspense or like The Exterminating Angel without the intellectual depth and imagination.