Shyamalan’s latest underwhelms
M. Night Shyamalan was nominated for writing and directing Oscars for the inarguably brilliant The Sixth Sense over 20 years ago, and he’s been trying to replicate that success ever since. Unfortunately, each of his offerings since then, aside from 2002’s box office victory Signs, has been met with high hopes and then dashed expectations. His newest film, Old, is a similar disappointment. “Disappointing” is actually too kind a word for this picture; unwatchable and laughable are probably more accurate descriptors.
Like all good movie fans, I went into Shyamalan’s newest with that same “Maybe this one will recapture the magic” anticipation that so many of us have with each new Shyamalan release. I was determined to be open, to try and find *something* to remind me of the creative promise he showed all those years ago. But no – there is nothing – and I mean that in the truest sense of the word – to seize on to here, nothing to praise even slightly, and nothing to hold our interest or capture our imagination. If I were forced to say one nice thing, I’d say the movie presents maybe the kernel of a marginally interesting idea, but it’s not even Shyamalan’s – he adapted the screenplay from a 2010 graphic novel called Sandcastle by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederick Peeters.
That idea – and the film’s basic plot, can be summed up in one of the many, many expository sentences uttered by a character: “Something is going on with time on this beach!” Turns out that a beautiful but isolated beach near a swanky resort (the area is never named in the film, but it was shot in the Dominican Republic) causes its visitors to age incredibly rapidly – a lifetime in a day. A group of resort visitors are dropped off there (by a van driver played by Shyamalan himself in a weird, unnecessary, and seemingly self-indulgent cameo) for some fun in the sun, but the dream outing quickly devolves into a harrowing nightmare. Why have these particular resort guests been selected for this beach excursion? What is making them age so quickly? Is there something more sinister afoot?
Shyamalan wants us to care about these questions, but doing so is very difficult when we are presented with silly, declarative dialog at every turn, stilted and wooden acting from normally vibrant actors, and long stretches of extraneous plot points that detract from the central mystery and only try our patience. Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps (The Phantom Thread) are our leads, playing a married couple on the verge of separating who bring their young children to the resort for a last hurrah. They have zero chemistry, and we can’t imagine they ever were once happy.
García Bernal is tasked with making a side comment at the start of the film about the hotel brochure that smart viewers will immediately pick up on for its conspicuousness, and use to unravel the film’s central mystery. When that’s finally revealed after what feels like an eternity, the resolution seems obvious and stupid. The film ends up being a sort of Benjamin Button on steroids, by way of Lost, and it’s neither daring nor entertaining. When several characters die during the course of the story, all I could think was that the actors must have been happy to get out of the picture early. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that same option, but now you do.
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Old opens today at Bay Area theaters.
