Old

M. Night Shyamalan's latest thriller is as un-scary as it is unintelligent, but it may just be the unexpected laugh you didn't know you needed.

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For about the first third of this film, I honestly thought M. Night Shyamalan had something here.

He’s probably the most well-known and widest appeal “auteur” thriller director working today, and it’s easy to see why—his first big hit is one of the most iconic and referenced twists in film history, and in the years since, he’s maintained that knack for the ‘mind-blowing’ final reveal, even if he’s yet to recreate the memorable heights of “I see dead people.” The majority of his films since have ultimately failed to impress on that level, as he’s become more known for goofy or frustrating twists than great ones. And yet I think most of us still go into each new Shyamalan film with at least the tiny lingering thought at the back of our minds: “What if this is his next Sixth Sense? What if he does it again?”

This penchant for twists, combined with audiences’ perpetual wishful thinking, seems to give Shyamalan the freedom to seemingly do whatever he wants with studio support and a healthy amount of publicity. It probably helps that he’s self-financed all of his films since The Visit.

This freedom runs rampant in Old, his latest weird n’ wild thrill ride. Set on a secluded beach that seems to trap its guests and bend time itself, our basic premise would feel at-home in an episode of The Twilight Zone:

Certain guests of a popular island resort are invited to spend their day at a private beach on the opposite end of the island from the hotel campus, only to find, once they’re dropped off, that they have no way back, no cell service, and worst of all, rapidly accelerated aging. To boot, this diverse collection of strangers must make the choice to trust and help one another, which proves more difficult than expected.

See what I mean? I was half-expecting Shyamalan to walk into frame on the beach, clad in a black suit and smoking a cigarette, and tell us these poor characters had wandered into a strange intersection in the fifth dimension.

That probably would have worked better if he wasn’t already playing the bus driver who dropped them off.

Very early on, the film is filled with weird choices—acting, editing, cinematography; all of it. But it’s the kind of unsettling stiffness and jumpiness that makes you wonder, “Was that bad, or am I supposed to be uncomfortable?” And I was inclined to give Shyamalan the benefit of the doubt and assume the latter, though, ideally, your filmmaking wouldn’t make me question if it was bad in the first place.

But for awhile, I was really enjoying the pervasive oddness. Line deliveries are odd, but in a more deliberate, “this is a weird character under weird circumstances” way, rather than a “this actor has no idea what they’re supposed to be doing” way. The camera periodically goes handheld, running around at eye-level with the children as they play and sporadically zooms in on their faces, creating a dizzying, spinning effect that, though I’m not entirely sure of the purpose, sufficiently put me on edge and confused me (which may be the whole answer right there).

Really, Old gets off to a solid start. It’s just peculiar enough to feel like a mix of abstract horror and old-timey teleplay awkwardness; the perfect tone for an episode of Rod Serling’s masterpiece. But it’s when the ball really gets rolling, and reveals have to be made, that things start to spiral out of control and decisions just stop making sense entirely. Where I was previously looking around and nervously laughing because I was genuinely unsettled, I started to now be genuinely amused by lines and scenes that were meant to be taken completely seriously.

It’s partly a script issue, and partly an issue of direction, but it’s as though Shyamalan can’t let himself have a good thing. Every time the story starts to move in what feels like a compelling direction, it’s undercut by a bafflingly stupid line of dialogue or a strangely inserted, somewhat irrelevant shot. It becomes impossible to discern the deliberately awkward from the poorly written or executed. Before too long, every single scene has a laugh-worthy moment—and I’m pretty sure this wasn’t intended to be a comedy.

One particularly hilarious scene got the entire theater laughing—it’s clearly intended to be the big “scare” of the movie, a would-be creepy attack in a dark cave that involves a lot of broken bones and contortions, and ultimately feels like an Eric Andre bit.

Fortunately, Old manages to not be overwhelmingly frustrating, thanks to that comic ridiculousness. Where I would perhaps normally get annoyed or bored with a movie that has no idea how to be scary or mysterious, I was completely engrossed—not for the terribly written story or the cartoonish caricatures—but for the mystery of how certain decisions were made, and how it would (or if it could) all find its footing in the end.

It doesn’t. And yet, I really can’t say I had a bad time. Would I watch it again? Maybe not, unless simply to show it to someone else who’s never seen it, just to see their reaction. But I was far more entertained by this than Glass, as Old carries less pretense about its own importance to its genre, and actually chooses to have fun occasionally.

There’s just an intriguing silliness to this film that’s hard to describe, especially without giving away plot details. You’ve likely noticed by now how scant I’m being on story—I’m going to leave it that way, just in case you venture out to see this one. I don’t want to go as far as to say this one is “worth the trip to the theater,” but it may be worth checking out at some point if you have any sick fascination for weirdly bad movies deep within your soul.

For all this, Shyamalan still, as always, shows a strong handle on his craft, at least from an audio-visual standpoint. Old looks interesting. Conscious choices are being made in the compositions and editing (not all of them good) to elicit a specific effect. He’s not unworthy of that term, “auteur.” A Shyamalan film is unmistakably a Shyamalan film, and Old is no exception. In fact, I think I actually like his shooting style and overall aesthetic; he just really gets in his own way when it comes to writing dialogue and directing his actors.

Props to the ensemble, by the way, for doing some surprisingly good work with awful material. Gael García Bernal (Y Tu Mamá También), Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread), Alex Wolff (Hereditary), Rufus Sewell (A Knight’s Tale), Thomasin Mckenzie (Jojo Rabbit and the upcoming Edgar Wright thriller Last Night in Soho)—it’s a pretty loaded cast. And they all bring it to their goofy characters.

I can’t tell if Shyamalan just can’t tell the difference between his good bits of filmmaking and his bad, or if he’s just more interested in crafting a bizarre experience for the audience than a coherent or convincing one. More power to him, I guess; he’s making box office hits on budgets of $20 million or less, and studios seem to be content to keep pushing his work.

And while I think Old may have finally silenced, for me, the nagging wonder about whether or not he’ll ever make another Sixth Sense (and Glass shut down any expectation I had for another Unbreakable), I think this film also liberated me to just sit back and enjoy whatever weird, stupid thing Shyamalan feels is worth his time and money. I’ll by no means be clamoring to see what he does next, but when it comes, I’ll probably be just perversely intrigued enough to check it out.