'Old' film review: M. Night's family psycho horror flick is shallow, absurd & hollow
M. Night Shyamalan's latest film 'Old' (opening in theaters July 23) robs its characters of years of their life in the span of hours. It also robs the audience of two hours of their life that they will never get back.
In short: A family on a tropical holiday discovers the secluded beach where they are relaxing for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly reducing their entire lives into a single day. Stars Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Eliza Scanlen, Thomasin McKenzie and Alex Wolff.
Just how stupid is 'Old'? Well, at one point, characters perform complex internal surgery ... on a beach, armed only with some thread, a needle and a pocket knife. And that's not even most preposterous plot turn.
It's obvious Shyamalan had the brain fart of "what if a person grew to old age in a single day?" - then he crapped out a so-called "script" in a day ... maybe two. Rather than craft complex, rich characters facing their truncated mortality or explore the existential concepts of time ... 'Old' just throws some random people into a time vortex and picks them off, one-by-one. It's somehow a "plot-driven" movie ... with virtually no plot.
The story is focused on a family of four: a married couple (Bernal and Krieps) on one last happy family vacation before they tell their two young children about their plans to separate. Eventually they find their way to a secluded beach with a handful of other characters - don't worry, none of these other characters matter. The four main character are little more than a struggling couple and their two kids. Everyone else is a one-dimensional, utterly disposable caricature whose careers apparently define their personality - and their only narrative purpose is to just fail in finding a way off the beach. The insurance actuary just rattles off stats about risk probabilities. The old woman is just old. The therapist psychoanalyzes the group and tries to start a group therapy sesh. Their character depth is defined by their job or their age.
Shyamalan's flick outright abandon's any attempt to create anything but a high-concept horror flick - where the enemy is time. These characters are dropped into a completely absurd and fatalistic nightmare - and the movie is content to just watch them freak out. This is perhaps Shyamalan's greatest wasted opportunity. The characters are being completely robbed of time - a hyperbolic statement on the human condition that even a life lived across decades can really and depressingly be measured in hundreds of weeks. But 'Old' can't be bothered with finding drama in existential urgency - the script just randomly picks off characters because of ‘horror’ reasons.
After a completely hilarious and out-of-nowhere plot turn involving another family's young daughter-turned teen, literally the only compelling reason to endure this dimwitted movie is to see what bonkers resolution Shyamalan could concoct to justify anything of this. And the conclusion is stupider than most would predict. The how and why of the mysterious beach is ludicrous - it's just safe to say that what happens to the beachgoers is no accident, and there's an absolutely mad justification behind it all. None of it is seeded or established - the explanation is just a flailing and desperate Shyamalan "twist" that is witless and insulting. Honestly, having no explanation or some "magical realism" element would be preferable to half-assed and hair-brained nonsense Shyamalan pulled out of his ass.
Final verdict: 'Old' is a shadow of a concept, wrapped in a tangled mess of "and then" plot turns. If forced to choose between watching 'Old' or going to the time-distorting beach that will aged you to death in a matter of days ... the beach is a better use of your time.
Score: 1.5/5
'Old' opens in theaters starting July 23. This horror thriller is rated PG-13 for strong violence, disturbing images, suggestive content, partial nudity and brief strong language and has a runtime of 108 minutes.
