Whether you love to hate him, or hate to love him, M. Night Shyamalan’s career has spanned many genres and premises, but he always seems to return to his comfort zone of making thrillers. 

With his recent film, “Old,” you can tell he is returning to his suspense-filled roots, while also doing what he is passionate about.  

However, passion can only get you so far. Does his passion for horror reflect on this movie, or is it just another bloated corpse washed up on the shores of cinema? 

The film follows a group of families who come upon a secluded beach while on vacation. Over the course of a few hours, the members of each party begin to age rapidly, reducing their entire life into a single day. 

As a premise, this is very compelling. The very concept of your entire life playing out in a single day is a very challenging pill to swallow. 

Seeing your life disappear in front of your very eyes could cause you to rethink how you are living your life. Do you want to fight the looming threat of death, ignore it, or accept it? These are all very big questions to ask.

Unfortunately, this movie seemed to evade these thought-provoking questions. It touches on these ideas, sure. But it never dives deep enough to make it interesting.

Instead of focusing on these bigger questions, Shyamalan (in typical Shyamalan fashion,) focuses more on the atmosphere, characters and cinematography. 

The film’s cinematography was well done. Shyamalan’s infamous use of a “one-take” shot is used to great effect to create a sense of claustrophobia. And the usage of camera panning (the act of sweeping the camera during a scene) helped keep the pace of the film from being too boring. 

In contrast to this, the acting is hit or miss. Out of most of the people, the standout performances were Alex Wolff and Thomasin McKenzie as siblings Trent and Maddox Cappa. 

Balancing the complex emotions of a little kids in young adult bodies, their performances helped to ground a very crazy movie into something more believable and tragic. 

However, the same cannot be said for the rest of the main cast, whose charmless dialogue and oftentimes awkward performances tended to create a lack of real investment in what they were going through or the trauma they were experiencing.  

Their responses to disturbing up situations felt at best pretty believable, but, at worst, down-right laughable. 

This tonal dissonance results in a film that doesn’t seem to know if it wants to be super dark or darkly comedic. It’s premise hints at a greater story, but its characters and plot leave a lot to be desired. 

However, all criticisms aside, Shyamalan’s efforts to stay fresh and original in an oversaturated genre are actually very inspired. 

Being able to pay for your own film productions while also combatting the pressure of a pandemic-damaged movie industry is no easy feat, yet here he is, still spending time to create what he loves. 

While the end product may not be the strongest of his work, it is still his work, so take a moment of time to appreciate the amount he spent.