Summary
A genuinely stylish throwback thriller that moves as quickly as a rapidly ageing baby.
More than two decades on from his breakthrough hit The Sixth Sense (1999), M. Night Shyamalan has created everything from alien invasion stories to pop culture adaptations and subversions of the superhero genre. His career has been marked by so many ups and downs that his trademark twist may now be the times that he cranks out a surprise hit.
With OLD, inspired by the Swiss graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters, he takes a back to basics approach. Guy (Gael García Bernal) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps) take their two children on a tropical vacation at a luxury resort. Cracks are showing in their relationship, and the implication is that this is a last family trip before they separate.
Ignoring the Fantasy Island aesthetics, when their hosts offer to show them a secluded beach they jump at the chance. Soon they are stuck in a remote corner of paradise with a ragtag group of people. There’s a doctor (Rufus Sewell), his young wife (Abbey Lee), younger daughter and elderly mother (Kathleen Chalfant). There’s nurse Jarin (Ken Leung) and his epileptic wife Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird). There’s rapper Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierre). There’s also a series of dead bodies, an inability to leave, and the phenomenon of rapid ageing.
OLD‘s high concept is a solid one: a throwback to an almost bygone era of genre flicks. The set-up is genuinely tense, as Shyamalan slowly sprinkles in unexplained phenomena and his dark sense of humour into a quasi-claustrophobic environment. Why is Mid-Sized Sedan’s nose bleeding? Who is watching them from the mountain? What’s up with Rufus Sewell being a jerk?
Yet once it gets going, it is relentlessly pacey. While somewhat appropriate in a film about accelerated ageing, Shyamalan gives the audience very little time to contemplate what’s happening — let alone absorb the latest revelation. Swinging from moment to moment, if it wasn’t for each character externalising their every thought, it would feel more like a rough draft than a completed project.
Compounding this is some stylistic weirdness. Shyamalan and cinematographer Mike Gioulakis seem determined to not show any object the characters might be focusing on, instead cutting to close-ups of faces of low-angled shots of walls and legs. At it’s best it’s just a bit odd, but becomes slightly laughable when we encounter the lurching final fate of Lee’s character. (It really needs to be seen to be believed).
As a character piece it mostly works well, especially in the first half of the film. Having said that, Bernal’s principal task seems to be to remind us he’s an actuary, providing an excuse for lots of lines about statistical improbabilities. This is true of most characters, who ultimately become fodder for the plot-driven narrative. Yet the introduction of Alex Wolff, Eliza Scanlen and the always reliable Thomasin McKenzie as the teenage version of the children adds a new energy.
If we’ve come to expect anything from Shyamalan, it’s the inevitable twist ending. Indeed, it’s not even a spoiler to suggest that one might be coming. The whole film plays out like a first act and an denouement, skipping the messy technicalities of a second act structure. Yet ultimately it all comes together in a mostly satisfying way, and it’s refreshing to see a thriller that’s unapologetically about getting in and doing the job with minimum hassle.
2021 | USA | DIRECTOR: M. Night Shyamalan | WRITER: M. Night Shyamalan (based on a graphic novel by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters) | CAST: Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Ken Leung, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abbey Lee, Aaron Pierre, Alex Wolff, Embeth Davidtz, Eliza Scanlen, Emun Elliott, Kathleen Chalfant, Thomasin McKenzie | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 108 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 22 July 2021 (AUS), 23 July 2021 (US)
