Old: A New Age Story

Based on the Swiss graphic novel, Sandcastle, Old is about a married couple’s, Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps) need for a relaxing family vacation before announcing their divorce to their children, Maddox (Alexa Swinton, Thomasin McKenzie and Embeth Davidtz) and Trent (Nolan River, Luca Faustino, Alex Wolff, and Emun Elliott).  The family arrive at a beautiful tropic resort, and on the manager’s recommendation, decide to spend a day on a secluded beach on the other side of the island.  The beach is surrounded by cliffs and there is only one path in, through a cave in the cliff wall.  The family is joined by 3 other parties, rapper Mid-Sized Sedan and a female companion; surgeon Charles, his wife Chrystal, their young daughter Kara, and Charles’s mother Agnes; and Jarin and Patricia Carmichael, a close-knit husband and wife.  What should have been a relaxing day, soon turns to horror, as the guests discover they are trapped on the beach with no way to get out and are rapidly aging, one year for every thirty minutes they spend there.  Tensions rise as the guests begin to succumb to the ravishes of time.

To be honest, I really wasn’t’ that interested in seeing this movie and so, kept putting it off.  I am a fan of most of M. Night Shyamalan’s work, but the premise made me slightly uncomfortable.  Maybe my own relationship with time and aging was subconsciously influencing my opinion, or maybe I just didn’t want to see another “Hell is other people” type of movie, but I was actually pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  I found the movie less about the drama between the guests, although there is some of that, and more about finding a solution to their dilemma.  I am glad to see Shyamalan return to movies that he excels at, giving us well crafted thrillers with a definite twist at the end.  For the most part, the story flowed nicely and had a good rhythm and cadence. The performances are all strong, although I had a hard time understanding Vicky Krieps from time to time.  All the actors playing the children through their different stages of life were exceptionally well done and the casting of the children moving between stages of life was looked very believable.  The idea of growing older, going through puberty in a matter of hours and having all the emotions related to coming of age, but not having the learned knowledge or experience to deal with such feelings was an interesting theme.

As much as I enjoyed the film, it wasn’t perfect.  Shyamalan purposely used some weird camera angles for effect, but sometimes it made the film feel amateurish. Although there were many themes addressed in the movie, none of them were really explored in depth.  Our relationship with time, aging, racial discrimination, dealing with sickness and grief and connecting with those around us, were all subtly handled, but there wasn’t enough time to really center on any one of them.  This may have been done on purpose, to give the audience something to think about, but draw no conclusions on the morality of the issue or was it literally that there was too much story to cover and not enough time to explore the themes.  It really didn’t matter, taken as a whole, the movie is a well crafted, tense thriller.  I won’t say I had fun watching the movie, because it isn’t a “fun” movie.  But I enjoyed the story telling, the mystery and the performances.