Review of Old (2021) by Jluis_001 — 25 Jul 2021

For some time now, more than anything since The Village, I've believed with complete certainty that M. Night Shyamalan is a troll. A big one that enjoys to troll his audience, and many inevitably still fall into his game.

I've long been tired of his style. That desperate search for a narrative twist that is on a par with what he achieved in The Sixth Sense.

He's been looking for that ever since, even if he doesn't admit it.

Since then throughout his entire filmography he has tried the same trick, and with the exception of Unbreakable and his two big studio films, in all of them, absolutely all of them, he has failed.

Of course, with the considerable difference in quality. Amid the sober tone of The Village, to the miserable film The Happening ended up being, which continues to be the lowest point of his career. Even beyond Lady in the Water.

Old is 100% the same. Shyamalan 101.

He constructs an intriguing mystery that of course gets the viewer interested. That always happens in all of his films, but soon as they move forward like an hourglass, grain by grain everything deflates.

Of course, the metaphor of time being our killer is super clear, and the fear and terror of our own mortality plays a role in it, but that's when the troll comes in and Shaymalan basically tells you: ''Ha HA HA I caught you''

It's almost as if he has a compulsion to surprise the audience with a conclusion that it's supposed to be shocking and at the same time has nothing to do with the expectations created by them, and that would be laudable if those conclusions were at least satisfactory, but Old only reinforces that Shyamalan sucks to write endings and more intelligent dialogue.