Poor M. Night Shyamalan. I wish The Sixth Sense had been his 3rd film. By coming out so strong with that first feature, he set himself up for failure for two straight decades, with audiences ready for another “Earth shattering” twist. Thankfully, Old arrives under lessened expectations; it’s not great, but there’s some magic in Shyamalan’s story, and the twist is better than “the trees did it.”
The Cappa family is in desperate need for a vacation. Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps) are exasperated with one another, and near divorce, with their young kids Trent (Alex Wolff) and Maddox (Thomasin McKenzie) getting sadder with each late night fight. They go to a resort, where they hear about this secluded beach that’s a “must see.” The family goes, along with another family: dad Charles (Rufus Sewell), mom Chrystal (Abby Lee), and daughter Kara (Eliza Scanlen). Initially, the beach is the salve they’re looking for: until a couple hours in, when 5ish Trent, 11ish Maddox, and 4ish Kara start to look like teenagers.
Even in The Sixth Sense, Shymalan’s forte has never been writing dialogue for his characters. In Old, it reaches Razzie levels of writing. I laughed multiple times at dialogue I’m certain I was supposed to take seriously. Characters make choices that aren’t explained well and just leave you shaking your head, repeatedly. The banter/exchanges are so distractingly rigid and inhuman they torpedo any sense of suspense or character building Shyamalan has in mind, sucking the narrative dry too. And one character in particular is written to be an easy joke, but after 5 seconds that joke walks dangerously close to racial discrimination multiple times. Stupid and insensitive? How the day quickly turns to M. Night. Zing!
So should you choose to watch Old, I’d wait till you’re at home, and watch it with the mute button on. Because in between the inadvertent horror of human language there’s legit creepy stuff going on. Shyamalan proves he’s lost none of his ability to craft some haunting images. The beach he chooses fits that perfect horror locale of beautiful on the surface, but sinister/rotten the deeper you look. Shymalan uses the It Follows technique effectively, slowly rotating the camera in a circle as we witness different characters reacting to terrible things that happen. The camera also gives a first person view of events, which does a better job connecting you with certain characters than the stupid dialogue. And even though it’s undercooked and rushed, Shyamalan gives us a half decent twist as well.
That twist gives a promise of a better movie than Old ends up becoming. There’s probably another Sixth Sense somewhere in M. Night Shyamalan’s artistic endeavors, but Old isn’t one of them. But maybe we’re getting there? Maybe Shyamalan is on his way to make a silent horror movie, playing to his strengths and keeping the writing to the humans.