Today’s quick review: Old. With their marriage failing, Prisca (Vicky Krieps) and Guy Cappa (Gael Garcia Bernal) take their children Maddox (Alexa Swinton) and Trent (Nolan River) for a getaway vacation on a tropical island. The resort manager (Gustaf Hammarsten) directs them to a private beach with some other guests. But when they get there, they are shocked when the children begin to age rapidly before their eyes.
Old is a thriller written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Tourists on a tropical vacation find themselves trapped on a beach where time flows at an accelerated rate. Unable to make it back through the cliffs surrounding the beach, the Cappas and a handful of other guests frantically look for answers while enduring a series of strange occurrences. The movie has an intriguing mystery, but its overall execution can be rough.
Old’s premise has eerie ramifications. The simplest of these is age. Over the course of hours, Maddox and Trent age years, skipping past entire phases of their mental and emotional development. The stress of the situation also takes its toll on the other survivors, who begin to take rash actions in their search for a way off the beach. All of this contributes to a fine sense of tension and a mystery with the right number of clues.
However, the way the story plays out is clunky. The dialogue contains a lot of flat exposition and baseless conjecture, which is only partially justified by the odd personalities of some of the characters. The story has a habit of bouncing from one crisis to the next without giving them a chance to breathe. And while the movie has some nice commentary on family and aging, it is drowned out by the moment-to-moment tumult of the plot.
Old is a fascinating thought experiment that ultimately falls short as a thriller. Fans of M. Night Shyamalan will appreciate its premise and some of the themes it touches on, but more critical viewers will get caught on the foibles of its execution. Skip Old if you are expecting a polished and hard-hitting thriller. If you have a taste for thought-provoking and unsettling science fiction, give it a try.
For another mystery thriller from M. Night Shyamalan, check out The Sixth Sense, Signs, or The Village. For a less successful attempt at a similar atmosphere of abstract dread, try The Happening. For another science fiction movie that explores the differential passage of time, try Time Trap or Inception.
[6.0 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10954652/). I give it a 6.0 to 6.5 for a promising mystery with bumpy execution.