Hello M., my old friend.
It has been a while since we last encountered one another, and sadly, I was pretty heated at that time, having just seen “Glass.”
I might have maybe said some things I shouldn’t, and for that I am sincerely sorry, but that’s the problem with your particular brand of creative genius.
I don’t know if you’re aware, but your movies can be pretty divisive; however, when they really work, I consider myself one of your biggest fans.
That’s why my Top 20 all-time favorites will forever include “Unbreakable” and “Signs.” That’s why I championed your return to form in 2015 with “The Visit,” even though the last 10 minutes almost sank the entire endeavor, and I shouted from the mountaintop when you roared right back with “Split.”
So, here we are, you and I, back together again to talk about your latest mind-bender, “Old,” and though nowhere near perfect, at least it’s better, so much better, than “Glass.”
“Old” is a slyly subversive little cinematic experiment that probably should have been contained to an hour-long format better suited for an anthology show like “The Twilight Zone.”
Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal), Prisca (Vicky Krieps), their son Trent and daughter Maddox arrive in paradise for a tropical vacation. There’s clearly something simmering under the surface between Guy and Prisca, but they want their kids to have one last family hurrah.
When the resort’s skeevy GM offers them an exclusive opportunity to visit an off-limits, private beach on the other side of the island, they don’t say no, even as other guests get offered the same VIP treatment.
What no one, especially us faithful viewers, knows at first is that this beach is private for a reason, and that reason is a strange anomaly whereby anyone who passes through its rune-like rock passage has their DNA irrevocably altered so that they immediately start aging in accelerated fashion.
As far as gimmicks go, M., you stumbled on a good one here because the central mystery is compelling enough that we don’t ask too many questions upfront, especially when you start killing off secondary characters quickly.
Gimmicks can be tricky, though, which you discovered yourself with “The Village,” which fell apart under the weight of its own ambition long before the final twist was revealed.
Maybe that’s why you felt the need to monkey with your central narrative in “Old,” by tweaking your third act and adding two unnecessary subplots about a shady, secret organization trying to capitalize on the island beach’s fantastical powers and teasing a possibly supernatural escape hatch that no other visitors had ever successfully reached.
You also featured a shady, secret organization in “Glass,” and we all know how well that worked out.
I wish you hadn’t felt the need to try and explain the anomaly, to justify the island’s ability to reduce an entire lifespan into a matter of hours, and instead allowed us, your faithful viewers, to fully invest in Guy and Prisca and the depth of their genuine love as we watched them age, along with their kids.
As it is, “Old” is an entertaining slice of escapism that’s almost instantly forgettable as soon as the credits roll.
I won’t be quoting any dialogue from “Old” years from now, not the way that I still say, ‘Swing away, Merrill,’ whenever I’m faced with a seemingly impossible challenge.
But that’s okay.
Like I said, at least “Old” is better than “Glass.”
I feel better now, M. I hope you do too. Hopefully we can set aside our past squabble and forget I ever told you to go eff yourself for ruining a movie I had waited almost two decades to see.
John W. Allman has spent more than 25 years as a professional journalist and writer, but he’s loved movies his entire life. Good movies, awful movies, movies that are so gloriously bad you can’t help but champion them. Since 2009, he has cultivated a review column and now a website dedicated to the genre films that often get overlooked and interviews with cult cinema favorites like George A. Romero, Bruce Campbell and Dee Wallace. Contact him at Blood Violence and Babes.com, on Facebook @BloodViolenceBabes or on Twitter @BVB_reviews.
This article appears in Jul 29 – Aug 4, 2021.