Old

2021 • 108 minutes

About this movie

Visionary filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan unveils a chilling, mysterious new thriller about a family on a tropical holiday who discover that the secluded beach where they are relaxing for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly ... reducing their entire lives into a single day. The film stars an impressive international cast including Golden Globe winner Gael García Bernal (Amazon's Mozart in the Jungle), Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread), Rufus Sewell (Amazon's The Man in the High Castle), Ken Leung (Star Wars: Episode VII--The Force Awakens), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Jupiter Ascending), Abbey Lee (HBO's Lovecraft Country), Aaron Pierre (Syfy's Krypton), Alex Wolff (Hereditary), Embeth Davidtz (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Eliza Scanlen (Little Women), Emun Elliott (Star Wars: Episode VII--The Force Awakens), Kathleen Chalfant (Showtime's The Affair) and Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit). Old is a Blinding Edge Pictures production, directed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan, from his screenplay based on the graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters. The film is also produced by Ashwin Rajan (Glass, AppleTV+'s Servant) and Marc Bienstock (Glass, Split). The film's executive producer is Steven Schneider.

Ratings and reviews

I almost didn't watch this movie due to its rating, but after seeing the trailer, I decided to give it a shot. I just want to say that I don't understand how one can rate this movie less than 5 stars. As long as you are a human, this movie will have a visceral impact. We always hear time is the most valuable asset in this existence and life is too short, but many a time the profound meaning of those statements eludes us. This film will make you re-assess what is really important to you in life.

At this point of M. Night Shyamalan's hit-or-miss career, sitting down to watch anything new from this off-kelter filmmaker is less an excercise of determining whether said film falls under "good" or "bad", but rather an experiment of which shades of "amusing" and "ludicrous" they ultimately turn into. Old is certainly one of M. Night's more fascinating films of late, in that while you're glued to see where the story is going, it's not in the way that Shyamalan likely intended. The execution of the film's "shocking" moments often have the opposite effect, and due to some woefully wooden performances (coupled by M. Night's stilted dialogue) they are rather comical than gripping or harrowing -- and in some cases (especially during a scene involving a rapidly developing pregancy), just outright cringey.

What I truly loved about this film was the fact that no film has ever broached this subject in this way. This horror movie was 100% unique in that way. But it was too chaotic and the storylines kept bouncing around all over the place. Nothing was cohesive enough to keep the Watchers attention. And that saddens me because there were some really great actors and actresses.