A Review of “Old (2021)"

M. Night Shyamalan is such a fascinating director, you never know what you’re going to get with him. He has made some of the most memorable movies with the best twist in cinema history and he has made some of the worst movies I have ever seen. It’s like a flip of a coin, the head is good and the tail is a bad movie situation. The premise of Old is “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”. So does Old (2021) land on heads or tails?

Firstly, I love the idea and concept of this movie. The idea of a thriller and mystery story about a beach that ages people is such a unique concept. I also like the themes that are explored, such as people being too focused on the past or the future instead of the present, people’s mortality and family dynamic changing with time. There are also some genuinely unnerving scenes, such as a surgery scene and some deaths that are just unsettling to watch. M Night also succeeds in creating a tense situation with the characters. They try a bunch of logical stuff to try and get off the island but it doesn’t work so you’re engaged on how they are going to get off the island. Additionally, some other characters are acting weird which makes creates a tense situation for our main leads. I also have to praise Alex Wolff and Thomasin McKenzie who play aged up versions of the kids. They have to maintain the young kid mentality which they certainly conveyed from their performance.

However, every other actor just gives such an unconvincing performance with terrible delivery. The actors all give such a bland performance with barely any tone in their voice, like a robot. This is partially due to the terrible writing and dialogue. No one seems to speak like an actual normal human being which makes the movie very off-putting. Some dialogue is so cheesy that it is actually kind of funny, even though the scene is clearly not meant to be. There are some exposition scenes where the characters are in a circle and discussing what is going on, which is just ridiculous. A fair amount of the characters make points about what is going on that is definitely right but is something people would not logically jump to at first thought. M.Night also returns with a twist ending, if you could even call it that as it was quite predictable. The ending is very lacklustre and even ruins the tone that was set throughout by making the movie become something different instead.

Overall, Old (2021) lands on the tail this time. By this point, I believe someone should let M. Night direct and create the ideas but not let him write the script whatsoever. It is still disappointing to see that even after all these years M. Night still doesn’t understand how to write dialogue as Old is one of the worst in terms of dialogue. The enticing premise is able to keep you engaged but everything else is so poor that it’s difficult to completely recommend this movie. Hopefully, next time M. Night is able to deliver a good movie because this is not it, unfortunately.