OLD. Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps. Also, Alex Wolff, Thomasin McKenzie, Rufus Sewell, Ken Leung, Nikki Amuka-Bird and Abbey Lee. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Rated M (Mature themes, violence and occasional coarse language). 109 min.
This American psychological, supernatural thriller tells the story of a family on vacation that travels to a secluded beach on a tropical island, looking for rest and relaxation. All of them begin to age prematurely. The film is an adaptation of a graphic, surreal French novel published in 2010 by writer, Oscar Lévy, and artist, Frederik Peeters, called Sandcastle. The film’s director is American filmmaker, producer and actor, M. Night Shyamalan, who has established a strong reputation for supernatural films that are spiritual in character.
The director’s best-known movie, The Sixth Sense (1999), had supernatural themes and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. That film is related to this one, and both movies focus their themes around life and death. The Sixth Sense held its tension by promising that something awful was about to happen. Terrible things occur in this movie too, and what happens in Old is not detectable by the five senses, that Shyamalan’s film, The Sixth Sense, says are mostly (normally) available.
Jack (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Kate (Vicky Krieps) travel with their two children, looking for a secluded spot where they can get away from the cares of the world. The beach that they find looks perfect: it is relatively isolated; it has coral reefs; there is lots of white sand to sun-bake on; and the beach is surrounded by picturesque high cliffs. Everything about the beach looks idyllic until one of the children, who goes into the water, sees the body of a dead woman floating by him, that starts to decompose. Every member of the family, and others on the beach, begin to age.
The beach is somehow cursed, or subject to some extraordinary force that is unfathomable. Members of the family desperately look for ways to flee from the beach. “We’re here for a reason,” Jack says. Those on the island get older regardless of what they do; the ageing process is relentless; and no one can leave – two people on the beach die in the attempt.
Horror hangs over everyone. The parents age from adults into old people, their children grow from childhood into adolescence and beyond; and another child on the beach gives birth on the way. All attempts to leave the beach prove futile. At the rate ageing is taking place, every member of the family will be dead within 24 hours, and something is reducing the lives of those on the beach to just one day. The family is doomed unless the secret of their ageing can be unravelled, and the clue to the secret has to be one involving “time”, associated with mortality, or the inevitability of dying. Death and ageing are the core preoccupations of the entire movie. The film looks to whether there is a scientific explanation, or “Is nature doing what it wants to do?”
Under M. Night Shyamalan’s controlled direction, the film is genuinely scary. In the film, fear about ageing is intimately intertwined with fear of approaching death, and every person on the beach has a reason to be mentally anguished, or is physically at risk in some way, where death looms as the inevitable outcome of existence. Solid tension builds up as those on the beach battle with “time” to uncover the secret of their distress. Shyamalan is known for shock surprises in his movies, and this film is no exception. This film’s final images reveal all, but in an unexpected way.
This film has many confronting visuals, and its tension is steadily maintained by the nature of the twists that Shyamalan skillfully delivers. The movie does not match The Sixth Sense in the impact of its major surprise punches, but on a number of occasions it goes perilously close.
Universal Pictures
Released in cinemas 22 July 2021
Peter W. Sheehan is an associate of Jesuit Media