In M. Night Shyamalan‘s latest outing, Old follows a group of tropical tourists on vacation at a remote beach for the afternoon.  But as the sun creeps higher in the sky, it reveals that something is not quite right about this beach – the tourists, especially the children, begin to age at an incredible rate.  The race is on to escape the beach before old age claims the beachgoers and turns their bones to dust and sand. 

The film starts out like Chapter One of an Agatha Christie novel where we get just enough information to inform us about our ensemble cast of caricatures and archetypes, and while this is a necessary part of the story, it takes entirely too long to complete.  It is a running theme with Old that it relishes in the build-up, but simply put there is not enough story here to warrant the 108-minute runtime.   Yet Shyamalan persists with his lingering camera, even after the plot does get moving and he tries to hold back on the first “big reveal” that the beach is accelerating the aging process.    

There are instances where Shyamalan creates true tension.  I can’t say that I enjoyed his reliance on off-camera, disembodied voices – which in his defense may be a byproduct of Covid-19 Safety Protocols – but visually, I found Old to be framed by someone who absolutely knows what they are doing behind a camera and how to capture shots, and that is where the strength of this film lies.  He is not reinventing the wheel in so far as your typical suspense set-ups go – the A/B cutaways where the Creature du Jour creeps ever closer – but he finds ways to challenge those all-too-familiar sequences by setting his thriller on a sun-soaked beach instead of a shadowy old house or a creepy forest. 

What is most frustrating about this film, though, is its script.  It crumbles under the weight of being “The Latest M. Night Shyamalan Puzzle Box.”  Unlike his colleagues that thrive in twisty narratives – think Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige (2006) or Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016) – Old does not exist to tell a story; it exists to deliver an ending straight out of left field.  The “Shyamalan Twist” became the director’s trademark after his success with The Sixth Sense (1999), but quickly became his burden to carry, as well.  Whereas part of the fun of Nolan and Villeneuve is that you can follow along after repeat viewings and pick up on the clues for a fuller understanding of the film, Old does not leave any breadcrumbs for us as an audience.  It is not because of Shyamalan’s inability to do so – again, refer to his 1999 breakout feature which is rewarding upon a second viewing – but it is this self-imposed expectation that there needs to be that final reveal which causes his films to become weaker and weaker each outing. 

It is not just the plot mechanics that were frustrating about this film, but also its messaging.  It had the potential to be a very timely reflection on how Covid has affected the youngest among us, even going so far as to mention how the children will never have a prom or a graduation.  It opens the door to ponder the fleetingness of time and of memory, the pain of regret and sorrow, the importance of treasuring our loved ones while they are here, but the film steamrolls past all of these thought points in pursuit of a disconnected ending.   

When the credits roll, the only question we ask ourselves is “Why does this film exist?”  Sure, not every film needs to have a grand philosophical message, but to have Shyamalan flirt with these ideas and not even seem to recognize that he is doing so, there is no other way to describe it than a missed opportunity.