Old starts off very intriguingly and mysteriously. The tension rises very nicely at first. The problem is that M. Night Shyamalan probably had no idea what to do with the heroes when the properties of the mysterious beach were already revealed to everyone. When we find out that time begins to accelerate, and 30 minutes can age bodies by up to 5 years, the whole atmosphere of horror escapes somewhere. The characters thrash on the sand without any sense, and the director keeps trying to surprise us by abandoning more corpses. The problem is that the story he wrote is boring and the characters uninteresting. We are not interested in the marriage problems of Guy (Gael García Bernal) and Priscy (Vicky Krieps) or what actually connects doctor Charles (Rufus Sewell) with his young wife Christal (Abbey Lee), bending over into sweet selfies every now and then. We are completely indifferent to the fate of all of them. Shyamalan adds more mysterious personas, such as the famous rapper (Aaron Pierre), but forgets to add any personalities to them. So he tries to scare the viewers with cheap tricks - e.g. with a body that suddenly flows out. It's just not enough to interest us. The mystery itself is quickly boring, and when it reaches the finale, it is a complete disappointment.
I understand that Shyamalan wanted to show viewers that time flies inexorably and you have to be able to use it as much as possible. Nothing is given to us forever and even if we have some fatal disease, there is no point in focusing on it, because we will not regain this lost time. You have to spend time with your loved ones, because when we understand this, it may be too late. On the other hand, people very often forget about it in fear. They cling to their old lives, despairing over what has already passed and will not come back. The best example of this is the doctor played by Rufus Sewell, who, despite his beautiful wife and daughter, is unable to come to terms with the changes in his life. Blame everyone around for them. He even treats people he doesn't know in advance.
This is not the director's worst film, it ranks somewhere in the middle. This is a typical mediocre in his performance, which looks good, but the closer he gets to the finals, the more he fails. The director has no idea how to end some of the threads he has invented, so he creates solutions on the fly. Unfortunately, it has not been explained why the heroes cannot leave the beach the same way they came, and they get a huge migraine in the tunnel. The director tells us that's just the way it is and that's it. Unfortunately, there are more such unanswered questions.
The main characters of the film are Guy and Prisca's two children, Maddox and Trend. The siblings know that their family is falling apart, so they swear to themselves that whatever might have happened, they would always be together. And even the quick adolescence caused by the situation on the beach cannot break that bond. This is the second truth that Shyamalan is trying to smuggle in this film. Family is the most important! Take care of her, because you will not meet anyone closer than your brother or sister on your way. Other people are just wanderers who will accompany you for a certain stage of your life. Siblings are and will always be.
After the great Split and the very interesting Servant series made for AppleTV +, I believed that Shyamalan had regained some balance and would be serving us a great and surprising cinema again. Unfortunately, I was wrong. He is a very uneven director with interesting ideas but no vision of how to run them evenly from start to finish. Old is just his next uneven film. Maybe the next one will be better.
