Old (2021) Review

It has come that time that very unique director M. Night Shyamalan returns to the horror genre with Old and I went and watched it today and here is my review for it. The premise of the film sees a group of people sent to a beach where time moves differently and people start to age at a faster rate. 

Main Character

There are a lot of characters in this film but I would say the two main are two parents played by Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps and they are both fine in their roles. There is plenty of challenges for them as actors in the film and they do the best they can with it and what I am going to say next isn't really a slate on them but the film in general. There characters just aren't that interesting, they are pretty bland and generic which makes it hard to care as much as the two performers try their best it just falls flat in the end. 

Supporting Characters

As said above this is a large cast of characters and what I will say about them is similar to what I said about the main characters. Thomasin McKenzie is a young actress with a growing reputation and she continues that here with a solid performance that makes you care about her character. Alex Wolff is similar, he moves away from comedy for a serious role here and he does it pretty well. I thought the best performance came from Rufus Sewell as a doctor, he truly portrayed just how mad the beach can make these people and how vulnerable can be despite having a high standing in society. But the rest of the cast does very little for me, there is like 10 people on the island and half of them are uninteresting and you are kind of just sat there awaiting to see there fate. Maybe the amount of people could have been lessened in order to give the characters greater depth. 

Story

The film's story has a lot of intrigue towards its story, mainly with trying to work out what is exactly going on and how it will affect these different people. The film kept my attention pretty much throughout the film and I wanted to just find out what exactly was gonna happen next. But I think this film's ending doesn't hit the levels that they wanted it to and after a good 90 mins or a bit longer it left me with a bit of a disappointing feeling. 

Script

The script is okay, it is a very serious film which is fine and usually that drama was handled well enough to build the intrigue and mystery into what was going on. Though I felt like this film had some really on the nose dialogue that left me shaking my head and if you see the movie you will know what I mean. 

Style

The films style is easily the best part of the film. It was chilling and mysterious and was more of a thriller then a straight up horror which is ideal for me. There are few jump scares and tension is built naturally and really cleverly with great sound design and camera work that felt very unique and immersive. 

Overall

Overall, Old is an above average film. It does a good job in what it aimed too, it is a mysterious and unsettling film that just misses the mark a bit for me but there will be people out there that will love it so if you like the sound of the film then I would suggest giving it a go despite the slightly lower rating. 

Rating - 6/10