Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Gael Garcia Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Alex Woolf, Thomasin McKenzie, Abbey Lee, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Eliza Scanlen, Aaron Pierre, Embeth Davidtz, Emun Elliott, Alexa Swinton, Gustaf Hammarsten, Kathleen Chalfant, Francesca Eastwood, Nolan River, Luca Faustino Rodriguez, Kailen Jude, M. Night Shyamalan, Matthew Shear, Daniel Ison, Jeffrey Holsman, Deidra Ciolko, Margaux Da Silva, John Twohy.
Growing old is a burden to our youth, and one that comes with worry, problems, afflictions, and escalating medical disorders, but thankfully, and if we are fortunate to survive the passage of time, is one that we have years to prepare for.
Growing old is a privilege denied many…and yet there are hundreds of millions around the world who deny the experience, who fight with every fibre in their body the chance to look age in the face and place all sorts of poisons into the cells just to keep looking young, to keep appearing vital and lean, to give the impression of the sexy and suggestive in a youthful gaze; no matter the cost.
M. Night Shyamalan’s Old is the fear of aging in a microcosm, a deserted beach with properties that increases time, that exacerbates and magnifies the process of growing older as the hours pass by and the range of illnesses in your body increases. As radically expressed within the film, we can live with aging because it takes time, but speed up time by varying factors, for every hour lived you age quicker, your body rebels and those diseases, the subtle forms of slow degrading symptoms are ramped up and present themselves in minutes, not decades. Old is fear amplified, to feel the wrath of time but in such a way that is heartbreakingly familiar.
Based on the novel Sandcastle by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters, M. Night Shyamalan returns to the director’s chair and weaves a tale of intrigue wrapped in the shawl of the unavoidable process, and by way of deceit throws in for good measure the belief of science acting as a construct to save millions of lives by taking just a few as test subjects; a fear of a different kind, of one that is engrained in concern as the watcher understands that in another time, in a more barbaric and fascist place, the same experiments were undertaken in the name of furthering science.
The dichotomy of the film, one of insular nature based against the backdrop of a stunning, inviting island paradise adds a tension that is encapsulated by the likes of Rufus Sewell, arguably in one of his great screen roles, as his character’s own mental unravelling becomes clear, and Vicky Krieps’ portrayal of Prisca as she becomes unnerved by her children’s sudden growing up and the opportunities missed in which to guide them through the challenges ahead.
The result is pressure increased, the mystery of the beach, the fear of dying, especially in a world in which we have collectively suffered immense losses in recent times is palpable, and whilst the final pay off perhaps does not live up to the rest of the film stature, it nonetheless lives happily in amongst the director’s catalogue of films.
Old is unnerving but with an eye on the crux of the matter, aging is inevitable, growing old a burden in which wisdom acts as a buffer to all that you can no longer do, but when it is forced upon you, the suffering is intensely felt.
Ian D. Hall