The central characters are Guy and Prisca (Gael Garcia Bernal and Phantom Thread star Vicky Krieps), a couple whose marriage is on the rocks. It can’t be stressed enough how much of Old is simply working through this premise, showing how the vacationers slowly realize what’s happening, as they eventually give in to despair or fail to escape. The story does make sense, but it also feels like it comes from another film entirely, one concerned with very different ideas than Old. Everything gets explained in Old, and that explanation doesn’t recontextualize the preceding hour and a half in a particularly profound way. Shyamalan’s latter-day career has been characterized by a move away from the big twists that were a calling card for his early hits like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, and while Old doesn’t return to that big-twist tradition, Shyamalan’s preoccupation with providing answers may goose viewers’ expectations. This moves Shyamalan’s adaptation more into the realm of mystery and away from contemplative horror, which feels like a grave, fundamental mistake. The source material doesn’t offer an explanation for the phenomenon, but Old does. And none of them are able to leave, as everyone who tries to head out the way they came blacks out, then wakes up in the surf again. Over time, they realize something is very wrong: They’re all aging astonishingly fast. Old is a pretty lousy horror film about adults, but a pretty good one about children.īased on the graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters, Old is a straightforward thriller about a bunch of people on a secluded, idyllic beach. The surprises come from its presentation, which is surprisingly affectionate for a film that doesn’t shy away from horrific death. Night Shyamalan isn’t in its story, which does exactly what the audience might expect.
The twist to the latest film from writer-director M. We’re adults, and sophisticated ones at that! We appreciate subtlety more than we want a film with a title that doubles as a very rude callout. That anxiety is so fundamental, it feels silly to turn it into a film premise, much less making it a film called Old.
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