Only twist in Shyamalan's 'Old' arises from incoherence
A movie so wonderfully made, yet so strangely written. Old, directed by M. Night Shyamalan is...different. Known for directing popular, but slightly disturbing, movies like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, Shyamalan has been experiencing an artistic rebirth with the financial success of Glass and Split. However, Old drowns under the waves of an incoherent script that cannot keep pace with the stunning visuals surrounding it.
Typically, when a movie opens with confusion, this intentional murkiness dissipates as the story progresses. Sadly, this is not the case with Old. The opaque nature of the plot, apparently, was not intentional as light never manages to break through. Essentially, different families all get sent to this ‘vacation island’ (one that probably banks some might low scores on TripAdvisor). People end up dead and friends turn on each other due to the mysterious ‘powers’ at play in paradise. Any further detail would start to give away the ‘good’ part of the story, but, honestly, a review chock-full of spoilers would be a better investment of time than money spent on this mess.
One aspect worth mentioning, which won’t spoil much, would be the movie’s themes. As the visitors to the beach age rapidly, they quickly grow to understand just how much time they wasted in life. Even this theme strikes clumsily due to foreshadowing as subtle as a shovel to the forehead in the first 30 minutes of exposition.
While the rapid aging inherent to the plot obviously interferes with characterization development, there should still be enough time for Shyamalan to at least make the attempt. There were some characters who really did grow and change on this beach, but others exhibited behaviors that make no sense unless viewers watch the concluding five or six minutes with a fine toothed cinematic comb. For example, a doctor begins the tale as a helpful member of the retinue only to fall into an implausible haze of psychotic rage.
If you’ve heard anything about this movie, it has probably arisen from the controversy surrounding Kara's (Eliza Scanlen, Little Women) pregnancy. The criticism is warranted given the character reaches the beach at a mere six years of age. Theoretically, in this movie, the characters have been determined to age about a year every thirty minutes, in other words, 48 years a day. Because of this, Kara matures rapidly and finds herself with child. This seems exploitative as it didn’t add much to the plot of the movie, and even though she aged physically, how was she aging mentally? And even if their minds did age with their bodies, I think everything going on was just so confusing that adding a child to the mix seems extreme. It causes the audience a lot of unnecessary confusion (with a side order of disturbing imagery hard to shake loose).
Relationships can be hard, and being on an island with a death sentence hanging like the Sword of Damocles certainly doesn’t help, but the relationship between Trent (Alex Wolff, Hereditary) and the aforementioned Kara belongs in some sort of Freudian, coke-fueled fugue. They met on the island when they were six, and in less than a day, they were suddenly both teenagers and Kara was pregnant. This ‘miracle’ probably won’t make any sort of district-approved health class addendum. In one scene, the two are cuddling in a tent and sharing their fears. Two minute laters, there’s a baby on the way.
One somewhat redemptive couple, Guy and Prisca (Gael Bernal and Vicky Krieps), manage to resolve differences obviously blowing up their marriage by the end of the film. Apparently, the best marriage therapy arises from time warps and early onset dementia.
Shyamalan is a brilliant filmmaker, but he churned out a movie both disturbing and unnecessarily confusing. When you see this in the $5 bin at WalMart, just keep digging. There has to be a brighter jewel underneath this dross.
Grade: D+
By Allison Kohfeldt
Oshkosh West Index Volume 118 Issue 1
October 6th, 2021