It took me a while to realize I was watching a bad film. The trappings of a good film were present, but as so often happens with an M. Night Shyamalan film, I stopped caring about the film halfway through and never returned. I couldn’t exactly pinpoint the moment, but I can say it was accompanied by a fiesta of overacting. It was as if Shyamalan told ALL of his players: “Sell it like your career might be over after this film, and so, so many complied knowing there’s every possibility it will be.
A secluded paradise is the setting for so many a horror film you get to wonder if movie execs enjoy their vacations. This one is a remote beach, seemingly untouched. Parents Guy Cappa (Gael García Bernal) and Prisca Cappa (Vicky Krieps) haven’t told their small children that their marriage is about to end and this vacation is their last hurrah. They also haven’t told their children where their ridiculous names come from. Also, Prisca has a tumor, which may or may not be causing their angst. The resort offers them special access to a secluded remote beach … oh, I bet you offer that to all the divorcing tumor-riddled couples, doncha?
The resort didn’t lie; it is an exclusive beach … and while the resort hotel clearly offered the trip to multiple couples, it wasn’t enough to spoil the moment; the beach did that all by itself. You see, this is an Old beach; it’s a beach where time operates differently; it moves much faster for human beings. This is a beach where one half-hour eats up a year of your life … you know, kinda like watching any film starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
Granted this is a potentially fascinating premise, some questions immediately arise: How long until these folks figure it out? How do they escape it once they do? How could it possibly occur to a “six-year-old” to start 
having sex with a “three-year-old?” Even in The Blue Lagoon, the kids needed half a film and some pictorial assistance.
And it’s about this time that the film went to Hell in a neatly packed picnic basket. I put it to you that no great film has ever challenged you to rank its characters in the order that you want them to die. But that’s exactly what I did while watching the second half of this film … “gee, I hope he dies first, then her, then her, then him, then her, etc.”
Old has the feel and polish of The Ruins, but –really- very little of the horror. This film could be seen as metaphor for people like me who are self-conscious of their age and watch time pass so quickly when it used to meander. Whatever extended metaphor about life, however, gets lost in the minutiae of overdramatic plotting and characters yelling like they’re genuinely in peril. I was especially put off by Alex Wolff playing a six-year-old in love. This beach has enough drama without an adult with the mind of a small child behaving like the worst kind of lovesick teenager. By the end of the film, I had enjoyed the premise and that’s about it. Seemed like a nice beach though; I’ll remember to visit the next time I have to watch The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
Another horror of questionable license
With direction that just made all of me wince
Of these failed film events
I remember The Sixth Sense
Has M. Night used the other five since?
Rated PG-13, 108 Minutes
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Writer: M. Night Shyamalan
Genre: Surprise! It sucks
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who fear the beach, maybe?
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Disappointed horror fans
