With his latest, Old, filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan has tackled a graphic novel, Sandcastle—by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederick Peeters. It finds him leaving his beloved Philadelphia behind, a locale where most of his films call home. Don’t kid yourself, the City of Brotherly Love gets a few shout-outs, but this is firmly a terror tale based on what passes for paradise.
Shyamalan famously had a seismic debut with the Oscar-nominated (for Best Picture no less) The Sixth Sense in 1999 and followed that up with the beloved Unbreakable, which not only starred his Sixth Sense lead Bruce Willis, but also the cinematic badass, Samuel L. Jackson. That film was revealed to be a trilogy recently with the release of Split (with an otherworldly turn by James McAvoy) and its final chapter, Glass.
Although he writes a vast majority of his cinematic efforts, he is no stranger to taking other people’s material and putting that Shyamalan cinematic stamp on it. The Last Airbender comes to mind—which was pretty universally panned. His foray into television is another example of him branching out. He serves as Servant’s executive producer.
With Old, he has taken on a graphic novel (something right up his alley) that clearly spoke to him. Many wondered how “Mr. Twist” would handle a source material that was pretty straightforward, i.e., no “twist.” Although jammed packed with an incredible mystery at its heart, the Sandcastle graphic novel was not known for its late in-the-tale twist that is a common thread throughout the filmmaker’s career.
Old finds the family grappling with much, (Gael García Bernal is Guy, Vicky Krieps portrays his wife Prisca) with their young children Maddox and Trent. Given the subject matter, teased brilliantly in the Old trailer, a collective of talent portrays the children, including JoJo Rabbit’s breakout Thomasin McKenzie (who is tasked with inhabiting Maddox as a teen) and Heredetary’s Alex Wolff as the late teen Trent.
This vacation is much needed, Prisca has recently discovered she has a tumor and the couple themselves have taken quite a hit and could be on the precipice of a split.
They arrive in this near the equator resort where “everything is taken care of,” including arranging a visit to a private beach that is promised to be one for the ages. The clan at the center of Shyamalan’s mysterious movie jumps at the chance to be taken to a private beach for some good old-fashioned family time.
Turns out to be not so private as several other guests from the resort also hop on the shuttle van, including a vascular surgeon Charles (Rufus Sewell, Judy), and his much younger wife Chrystal (Abbey Lee, Mad Max: Fury Road) and their young daughter Kara.
Also, along for the ride, and providing much in every definition of the word, is the couple Jarin (Ken Leung, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens) and his wife Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird, The Laundromat).
When they arrive on this private beach, they run into a rap star who goes by the moniker of Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre, The Underground Railroad). He is dazed, bleeding from the nose and the girl he was with is missing. When she turns up dead in the ocean, things get ugly, and our mystery takes off in its varied levels.
One thing is for certain, there is no getting off this beach. When anyone attempts to do that exact thing, they wake up on the beach with a splitting headache while suffering a case of the unconscious.
Another, far creepier element, is that the three children in our group, don’t fit in their swimsuits anymore. It’s as if they grew spontaneously. As shown in that Old trailer, our stranded souls on an otherwise nirvana of a beach, are also aging. It is determined that each hour on the sandy locale is equal to aging a number of years.
Now, might be a good time to freak out. In a blink of an eye, Prisca and Guy’s son is now a teenager (and played by Wolff, recently seen in the stellar Pig) and Maddox is every bit the 16-year-old. Kara (now portrayed by Nikki Amuka-Bird (Little Women) is Charles and Chrystal’s pride and joy. That phrase “blink and your kids are teenagers” actually occurs here!
Any effort to get off the beach is met by tragedy, and the bodies are starting to pile up. Some are handling the horrorshow with an even-keel, such as Mozart in the Jungle breakout Bernal. Others, such as Sewell’s surgeon… not so much. There’s even an aspect of blatant racism that rears its ugly head, further complicating an already complex landscape.
Just like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button—or any film for that matter, there is an enormous amount of suspension of disbelief. Yet it seems that Shyamalan is often not permitted that element of the filmmaking process that is a given. His cinema creations are held to a stricter standard. Guess if your debut film is The Sixth Sense and it lands you on the cover of Time magazine with the headline “The Next Steven Spielberg” a giant target can suddenly appear on your back and your front.
After a string of misses (and not hits, clearly), the pairing of Shyamalan with Blumhouse and Universal Pictures—who is behind Old—“revived” the Golden Child’s film career with 2015’s The Visit, a found-footage feature that firmly has that Shyamalan stamp. He followed that with Split (also a Blumhouse/Universal release), and it was safe to say that the “next Spielberg” was back. Sadly, Glass was met with mixed reactions.
The fear was that the “misses” Shyamalan was more his default than the “hit” Shyamalan. Now, Blumhouse is not behind Old, just Universal and they honestly have a hit on their hands. The reviews seem to be mixed, but this writer found that the material was risky and provided challenges that likely were welcomed by the cinematic perfectionist.
The film is a straightforward story, as much supernatural tales can be, and doesn’t contain the filmmaker’s patented twists and narrative turns that leave audiences with their jaws ajar. In fact, the mystery of Old and the desperation to solve it by our ensemble is innate and all one requires.
There has to be a way off this slice of beachy wonderland. The question is how?
The film keeps you guessing as to the “reality” of the situation. After all, even the most “out-there” science fiction/supernatural tales should have answers to their questions.
Adding layers to the crypticness of Old is otherwise simplicity that is the passage of time. We all know that it cannot be stopped—despite our best efforts! Here, it is literally life and death. Although there are silver linings that both contribute to the mystery and add to the incomprehensible. For example, Amuka-Bird’s psychologist Patricia, a sufferer of seizures, is aging like everyone else. Yet, she has not had an epileptic episode since she arrived at the beach. Hmm…
Alfred Hitchcock once famously described how the entity of time is a priceless tool in a filmmaker’s toolbox of suspense building. He spoke about a couple of fellas enjoying coffee and the camera shows a timer counting down on a bomb sitting below their table. While blissfully unaware of their impending fate, audiences undoubtedly scream at the screen (silently or literally!), “there’s a bomb at your feet, stop talking about baseball.”
Shyamalan has made an entire picture centered around that very subject matter. Time is the enemy. Sure, death is inevitable. But it shouldn’t arrive in a single 24-hour day due to some supernatural result by the beach that is surrounded by seemingly unscalable rock mountains. Hearing his ensemble discuss their theories that range from why this is happening to how do we stop it and escape this seemingly heavenly hell, feels wickedly original and fresh. The filmmaker adapted the graphic novel, so it is his screenplay, and his stamps are all over Old.
The aging makeup adds to the piercing realism of it all and credit must go to the makeup and hair departments, who have gone over and beyond. Too often an actor or actress is aged, and it feels and looks obvious that it is movie makeup doing the work. In Old, the hair and makeup are about as organic as can be achieved. Martin Scorsese famously shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars for his The Irishman to de-age his stars in order to not have to cast other actors and it doesn’t possess half the realism that practical effects have on Old.
The cast is sublime, and each member keenly knows their spoke in this wheel of mysteriousness. It’s impossible to single out anyone in the cast due to the fact that they all effortlessly feel like a group of individuals who are facing the most unexpected reality that can exist. There is one individual, who to name would border on spoiler territory. Let’s just say that this character brings a history of self-adoration that complicates matters on the beach, to put it mildly.
There is a most fascinating of elements to Shyamalan’s latest. If a movie is worth its weight in salt, the viewers have an unspoken “feel” that they are part of this landscape. There is much that is inescapable in Old. But one thing that was a common thread throughout the entire endeavor is a foreboding sense of a self-inquiry surrounding, “What would you do in this situation” that permeates the film.
Shyamalan as a writer has been a well-documented mixed bag. There is unmistakably something about the tale at the heart of Old that spoke to the (now) veteran filmmaker. As such, his script is smart, and populated by extraordinary experiences that are made to feel perfectly “normal.” It’s the shock.
That heightened sense of self-awareness that rains on every frame of Old is a tough needle to thread.
Being too self-understanding and it comes off as arrogant or self-indulgent on the part of the writer and filmmaker (here, the same soul). Not enough awareness of the “cost” to our ensemble comes off as indifferent—a death knell for a supernatural suspense thriller.
The man once crowned the king of the future of Hollywood has delivered a picture that has managed to find that sweet spot between being self-aware and as organic as cinematically possible. Old is a fun, slice of summertime escapism. At the least, the film will certainly make you want to check and double-check your itinerary before visiting your own version of utopia. At the most, it will spook you to your core.
Grade: A-