Old

PG-13 | Brief Strong Language | Partial Nudity | Strong Violence
Mystery & Thriller Horror

A tropical holiday turns into a horrific nightmare when a family visits a secluded beach that's somehow causing them to age rapidly -- reducing their entire lives into a single day.

A family on a tropical holiday discovers 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.

Official Trailer: Old

Review: Old

M. Night Shyamalan is famous for his twist endings but for reviewers of his latest fantastical thriller Old spoilers are less of a worry than usual. There are surprises but it's clear where the story is going: the same place everybody's story is going in the long run.

The Cappas an ordinary middle-class family check into a tropical island resort in an unspecified part of the world.

Straight away there's trouble in paradise: husband and wife Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Prisca (Vicki Krieps) plan to split up once they get home and have little success hiding their squabbles from their young kids Maddox (Alexa Swinton) and Trent (Nolan River).

Meanwhile the real fate that awaits these characters is unsubtly foreshadowed in the dialogue which harps on the passage of time. Next morning the friendly resort manager (Gustaf Hammarsten) invites the family to visit a secluded beach on the other side of the island. Soon the Cappas are on their way travelling through the jungle with half a dozen strangers.

Shortly after they arrive at the beach enclosed by high walls of rock things start going very wrong. One member of the group dies suddenly; another appears to be losing his mind. And suddenly Maddox and Trent don't look quite so young ...

The characters are understandably baffled then terrified especially when they find they can't go back the way they came without passing out. But quite quickly we know where we are. The beach is a stage where the usual dramas of life are playing out at a faster than normal rate. This premise - drawn from the Swiss graphic novel Sandcastle - is as universal as it gets. The shock of ageing losing loved ones waiting for the clock of life to run out: who can fail to take all this personally?

Old at points is a genuinely harrowing movie. It also has the unmistakable Shyamalan touch which is to say it's both blunt and weirdly complicated and full of the kind of absurdity that keeps us wondering how far it's intentional.

On the other hand there's no doubt about Shyamalan's uncommon artfulness and originality as a visual storyteller - and on this level Old may be the most sheerly inventive film of his career.

Much of what's both unsettling and playful about Old stems from what happens off-screen : when a character drops out of view then reappears they may not look the way they did last time or even be played by the same actor.

It's a trick that feels especially fitting for a director who has the knack of seeming both silly and profound young and old at once.

This review by JAKE WILSON is from the July 29 2021 issue of The Age Digital Edition. To subscribe visit "https://www.theage.com.au".