Old

“I hope I die before I get old,” sang Roger Dal­trey in The Who’s 1965 smash-hit ​‘My Gen­er­a­tion’. In M Night Shyamalan’s 13^th fea­ture, there is pre­cious lit­tle time to make that dis­tinc­tion, as a fam­i­ly on a dream vaca­tion inad­ver­tent­ly find them­selves strand­ed on a beach where the pas­sage of time is rapid­ly accel­er­at­ed. It’s the lat­est high-con­cept thriller from the mas­ter of the cin­e­mat­ic bait and switch – a pleas­ing blend of com­e­dy, hor­ror and action with enter­tain­ing and occa­sion­al­ly sil­ly results.

Based on the graph­ic nov­el Sand­cas­tle by Pierre Oscar Levy and Fred­erik Peeters (which Shya­malan was gift­ed by his daugh­ter) the film fol­lows insur­ance actu­ary Guy (Gael Gar­ciá Bernal), his muse­um cura­tor wife Prisca (Vicky Krieps) and their young chil­dren Mad­dox and Trent as they take a long-over­due hol­i­day from their native Philadel­phia to an idyl­lic resort that Prisca found online. On arrival, Trent forms a friend­ship with the resort manager’s young nephew, Idlib, who seems to know some­thing strange is going on at Anami­ka, which has some sort of rela­tion­ship with a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny Guy recognises.

Nev­er­the­less, the fam­i­ly trun­dle off for a beach day where they’re joined by doc­tor Charles (Rufus Sewell), his moth­er Agnes (Kath­leen Chal­fant), his mod­el wife Chrys­tal (Abby Lee) and their young daugh­ter Kara. Anoth­er cou­ple from the resort, Patri­cia (Nik­ki Amu­ka-Bird) and Jarin (Ken Leung) turn up, but things take a turn for the worse when a body wash­es ashore, and sus­pi­cion falls on famous rap­per Mid-Size Sedan (Aaron Pierre) who was with the woman before she died.

The shocks come thick and fast in the first half of the film, where the char­ac­ters start to realise some­thing is des­per­ate­ly wrong with their sur­round­ings, caus­ing them to age at a rate of one year every half an hour. It also becomes appar­ent that sev­er­al of the guests are suf­fer­ing from phys­i­cal or men­tal ail­ments, which makes their sit­u­a­tion even more dire; Shya­malan has a lot of fun play­ing with the twist­ed log­ic of the beach, and the impact of rapid age­ing on the body ver­sus the mind. The cast are clear­ly hav­ing a ball, and spe­cial cred­it should be giv­en to the cast­ing team who found actors of a sim­i­lar like­ness to play the child char­ac­ters at dif­fer­ent ages – it’s pret­ty uncan­ny, and all with­out the use of dis­tract­ing CGI.

Old is not with­out its prob­lems though. Shyamalan’s dia­logue is at times clunky and expo­si­tion-heavy, leav­ing lit­tle for the audi­ence to fig­ure out them­selves, while there are sev­er­al holes in the film’s log­ic that threat­en to unrav­el the whole expe­ri­ence if you think too hard about it. It’s also dis­ap­point­ing to see the de fac­to vil­lain of the piece pre­sent­ed with a men­tal ill­ness; this harm­ful trope only adds to the stig­ma sug­gest­ing peo­ple with men­tal con­di­tions are a dan­ger to others.

Still, the sol­id cast sell the fan­tas­ti­cal sto­ry­line, and there are pro­found moments amid the sur­pris­es. Watch­ing your life lit­er­al­ly slip away in front of your eyes, the con­cept of mod­ern util­i­tar­i­an­ism, and com­ing to terms with los­ing your par­ents when you’re still a child, are heavy themes that echo Shyamalan’s great­est hits. He’s still a film­mak­er capa­ble of hit­ting emo­tion­al beats.

Anoth­er rea­son to appre­ci­ate Old is that Shya­malan always swings for the fences. At a time when so many films feel devoid of per­son­al­i­ty, as if they have cyn­i­cal­ly been made to be as bland as pos­si­ble, he is one of the few direc­tors with a strong sen­si­bil­i­ty and a pas­sion that shines through in his work. Old might not reach the heights of his Eas­trail 177 Tril­o­gy or even the twist­ed The Vis­it, but it’s a per­fect sum­mer escape that encour­ages view­ers to seize the day – and maybe be lib­er­al with the SPF 50.

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