OLD (2021) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

OLD (2021) movie

Genre              |   Thriller

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   109 minutes

Released         |   23 July 2021

cast

Gael García Bernal ... Guy
Vicky Krieps ... Prisca
Rufus Sewell ... Charles
Alex Wolff ... Trent Aged 15
Thomasin McKenzie ... Maddox Aged 16
Abbey Lee ... Chrystal
Nikki Amuka-Bird ... Patricia
​Ken Leung ... Jarin

director

​M. Night Shyamalan ... (directed by)​

writer

M. Night Shyamalan ... (written for the screen by)
 
Pierre-Oscar Lévy ... (based on the graphic novel "Sandcastle" by) and
Frederick Peeters ... (based on the graphic novel "Sandcastle" by)

cinematographer

​Mike Gioulakis ... director of photography

music

​Trevor Gureckis ... (music by)

film editor

​Brett M. Reed ... (edited by)

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box office result

Worldwide               $? million

Australia                 $? million

North America        $? million

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movie minutiae

​The film is an adaptation of a 2010 graphic novel by writer Pierre Oscar Lévy and artist Frederik Peeters called Sandcastle. When asked what inspired him to adapt the book to film, director M. Night Shyamalan explained: "The book gave me the opportunity to work through a lot of anxieties I had around death and aging, and things like my parents getting older."

​M. Night Shyamalan said the subject matter of the film, in which a group of people find themselves trapped on an isolated beach, dealing with a deadly phenomenon, mirrored the experience of being in lock-down, and the uncertainty of the Coronavirus pandemic, adding: "It was strange. We were making a film that had nothing to do with the pandemic, but at the same time it was absolutely about this fear and uncertainty we were all feeling. This fear of infection. It made us think very deeply about death, about survival, and about being in lock-down. This idea of being stuck in a situation and not being able to leave."

​

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OLD (2021) MOVIE IMAGES

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Posters

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Posters

OLD (2021) STORY SYNOPSIS

​This summer, 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.

OLD (2021) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 22 July 2021

Pop ​Movee Rating

​M. Night Shyamalan continues the revival from his mid-career slump with OLD, a more mature film that taps into the fears the global population has experienced since the COVID pandemic took hold at the beginning of 2020...

Specifically, OLD uses fear of unknown, untreatable medical conditions combined with the isolation of a natural prison, in the guise of a tropical beach, to show what might happen if a group of otherwise unrelated people were thrown together under such circumstances.

The concept used as an allegory is not new. There are hundreds, if not thousands of books, TV shows and movies that use the same or similar storytelling ideas.

Where OLD succeeds, for the most part, is Shyamalan’s execution, especially his casting.

Gael García Bernal (Guy) & Vicky Krieps (Prisca) play a husband & wife, with two young children (Maddox & Trent), looking to escape the drama of reality with a tropical vacation. Everything seems just a little too good to be true, but, given their personal challenges, Guy & Prisca don’t question the beauty of their surroundings.

Shyamalan drops the first clue that things may not be quite as they seem when young Trent befriends Idlib (played by Kailen June), the nephew of the all-too-accommodating Resort Manager (Gustaf Hammarsten). Idlib tells Trent that he has no friends, telling him that they all leave. Trent protests, telling Idlib that he’ll be his friend and that they can stay in contact even when he goes home...

There’s something in the way that young Kailen Jude delivers his lines throughout this exchange that attracts the viewer’s interest and, to an extent, telegraphs the next part of the movie.

OLD really starts to get moving once Shyamalan begins to assemble his cast of characters on the exclusive beach setting where the bulk of the story plays out.

Guy, Prisca, Maddox & Trent are joined by Charles (Rufus Sewell), Chrystal (Abby Lee) & Agnes (Katheleen Chalfant) on their minibus ride from the resort to the beach. As has become his custom, Shyamalan appears in his film as the resort employee who drives the group but there’s something a little awkward about his character and - again - the viewer is left to question what is happening.

As with most of Shyamalan’s work, to reveal too much more about the story would spoil the mystery of the film’s second half. For the most part, the story is well paced and the revelations make sense. Some scenes are a little hard to fathom, as there doesn’t appear to be any internal logic dictating what is happening. Shyamalan seems more interested in creating surreal imagery than underpinning plot twists with sensibility. 

At the end of the day, it’s his move, so he can do what he wants to achieve the effect he’s looking to create.

It’s become very clear since THE VISIT (2015), as well as the subsequent SPLIT (2017) & GLASS (2019), that M. Night Shyamalan has given his career a great deal of thought.

Both THE VISIT and SPLIT were outstanding films.

GLASS wasn’t what many fans of UNBREAKABLE (2000) might have hoped for, but as a way to bring together David Dunn & Kevin Wendell Crumb, it was a solid effort; primarily let down by Shyamalan’s need to step beyond the characters and attempt to deliver a “global conspiracy” plot that distracted from the presence of Bruce Willis, James McAvoy & Samuel L. Jackson.

With OLD, Shyamalan has backed-off what might be considered “Shyamalan Tropes”. Yes, there are some that are present, but they do not cast as large a shadow as they do in his previous work. Viewer’s perception of OLD will not be as radically altered by its ending as THE SIXTH SENSE (1999), UNBREAKABLE or SIGNS (2002).

OLD really is a more mature film. (No pun intended.) Shyamalan has made a movie that is a Drama, Mystery, Thriller where he really has attempted to make the Drama the key to the story. 

It is not without fault but, with a sigh of relief, it confirms that Shyamalan has discovered a way to balance the “twists” of his early success with a more focussed, intimate and character-driven approach that has seen him recover his status as one of 21st Century cinemas most talented cinema storytellers.

OLD MOVIE (2021) USEFUL LINKS

Old (film) - Wikipedia
​Old (2021) - IMDb
​Old (2021) - Rotten Tomatoes
https://www.old.movie/​
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