#Maddox Cappa

[cinemgc]

Old (2021, US)

 • Dirección: M. Night Shyamalan

 • Guion: M. Night Shyamalan

 • Cinematografía: Michael Gioulakis

 • Cast: Thomasin McKenzie,  Alex Wolff

[adamwatchesmovies]

Old (2021)

I've never seen another movie tell the same tale as Old. This makes it unpredictable and interesting from the get-go. It also explains too much, which makes it easy to poke holes in its story. Whether you'll enjoy it depends entirely on your ability to suspend your disbelief.

Like many of M. Night Shyamalan’s films, the less you know going in, the better. This allows you to experience the strange goings-on as the characters do, which will distract from the loopy mechanics of this strange beach. Before going into more details and the premise, I'll tell you that it's worth checking out. You might find that it exploits a fear you didn’t even know you had. If some of it doesn’t seem to add up (such as Nikki Amuka-Bird’s character) just wait. Old doesn’t really have a twist. That word implies that everything you saw before will be turned on its head. What Old has is not the same as a reveal that “they were living in present-day the whole time” or “he was the hero’s father all along”!

With that said, the premise: Guy and Prisca Cappa (Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps) are vacationing with their six-year-old son Trent (Nolan River) and 11-year-old daughter Maddox (Alexa Swinton). While relaxing on an exclusive beach with some other resort guests, they suddenly begin aging one year for every thirty minutes.

Suddenly discovering your health will degenerate until death in a matter of hours or that your best years slipping through your fingers are real fears touched upon to various degrees. Even if the characters don’t explicitly express these, you feel it just looking at them. The way Shyamalan transitions between the different actors who play the same roles is effective. A different movie would’ve made the mistake of trying (and failing) to use computer effects to show rapid bursts of time. In Old, we follow enough characters that someone can walk away from the camera - for credible reasons - and then come back later looking completely different without making you feel like they’re cheating.

Though the dialogue is often stilted, the filmmaking is still good. Every second spent on the gorgeous sand with those beautiful cliffs and that pristine water is costing our protagonists a lot. You want them to hurry but an escape must be carefully planned - we see how fatal rushing things can be. Then, there are the internal dangers. Sometimes it’s a disease that goes untreated “for years”. In some cases, it's the psychological toll of losing your looks, your strength, your sight, your hearing, and your health. If you suffer from a mental disease, your mind might go. Someone on the beach snaps and they become an external danger. The premise also allows for quiet, contemplative moments as some people realize it’s too late for them, that all they can do is enjoy their twilight years.

Even when M. Night Shyamalan isn’t successful, his projects are interesting because they’re ambitious. Old shows that maybe he should get a co-writer to polish his dialogue and get a second opinion about which mysteries need to be left in the dark but it's more "good" than "bad". (November 7, 2021)

[algunasnotasqueleer]

Old (E.U.A., 2021)

(76) Reseña escrita por: Aldo M. Tena.

Director: M. Night Shyamalan Guión: M. Night Shyamalan Basado libremente en la novela gráfica SandCastle de Frederik Peeters y Pierre Oscar Lévy. Actúan: Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell y Thomasin McKenzie.

¡Por fin vemos en pantallas la esperada película del gran M. Night Shyamalan! Después de meses de retraso por los evidentes problemas de la pandemia llega a cines Old, que además de ser una película muy en la línea y a la altura de trabajos anteriores de Shyamalan, sorprende por la forma en que aborda el suspenso en un escenario nada ordinario para narrar una historia de este tipo.

Una familia encabezada por Vicky Krieps (Prisca Cappa) y Gael García Bernal (Guy Cappa) junto a sus dos pequeños hijos Maddox y Trent Cappa, viajan de vacaciones a una playa paradisiaca luego de que la esposa encontrará un llamativo anuncio y cupones en una farmacia. Durante su estancia, el dueño del hotel les ofrece a ellos y a otras familias ir a una playa exclusiva en donde solo algunos han podido entrar. Una vez dentro de esta hermosa playa, las cosas comienzan a cambiar a una velocidad tremenda. Es el tiempo el que será su mayor enemigo, envejecerán a velocidades inesperadas y con ello los problemas crecerán. Todo esto rodeado del mar, y una enorme muralla de rocas de las cuales misteriosamente no pueden volver a pasar.

Un distintivo del director a lo largo de su prolífica y aclamada carrera ha sido la forma en que lleva el suspenso, o como experimenta con el en base a la situación. Recordemos que M. Night Shyamalan es director de películas como The Sixth Sense (1999), Signs (2002) y más recientemente The Visit (2015), que con el paso del tiempo ha logrado atraer al público a su trabajo. Ha experimentado en al menos estas tres películas, tres tipos de narrativas diferentes en el suspenso. Tenemos en The Sixth Sense un vistazo hacia el mundo del terror sobrenatural, dando a su personaje principal la posibilidad de ver a fantasmas, y además de poder comunicarse con ellos. Sings, que en lo personal es una de mis películas favoritas de Shyamalan, juega con la ciencia ficción en esta historia en donde un ex sacerdote, junto con su hija y su hermano menor, se ven acosados por lo que al parecer fuesen extraterrestres. Dañando sus cultivos e incluso su casa. En cuanto a The Visit, entremezcla lo que pareciera sobrenatural en un inicio, para después convertirlo en un auténtico thriller, además de que en toda la película utiliza el recurso de cámara en mano, a cargo de sus dos jóvenes protagonistas que documentan la visita por primera vez en toda su vida a casa de sus abuelos.

Old se arriesga creando una atmósfera de terror y de incomodidad cuando vemos después de los primeros minutos que es el tiempo el que está en contra de los personajes. Las tres familias se encuentran en una playa amurallada por enormes rocas que no pueden escalar, ni pasar por ellas de nuevo. El escenario recuerda un poco a una obra de teatro, por ambos lados los personajes se encuentran recluidos entre la muralla y el mar. Haciendo que un espacio vacío y tan cálido como es la playa se vuelva en un ambiente tenso y sofocante. Lentamente los personajes comenzarán a caer, sus cuerpos envejecerán a ritmos desproporcionados, y la histeria colectiva se apoderará de ellos al no saber como detener ni defenderse de algo que no pueden ver.

Se puede ver también la lucha interna por adaptarse al tiempo, que inevitablemente siempre irá en contra. Cada personaje experimenta la crisis de la edad con mayor fuerza. Entre los adultos se resaltan sus enfermedades, la demencia, dolores, padecimientos repentinos, y sobre todo la fatiga. El saber que probablemente a ese ritmo, nunca saldrán de ahí.

La supermodelo australiana Abbey Lee Kershaw, interpreta a Chrystal, una joven mujer que está casada con un hombre mayor, médico director de un importante hospital. En ella podemos ver una enorme caída personal. Debido a sus complejos de belleza exagerados y con una aparente descalcificación en los huesos. Ella es extrañamente una de las últimas en caer, pero quien menos sobrelleva la situación, terminando recluyéndose en una de las cuevas de la playa, encerrada en medio de la oscuridad por miedo a que la vean en este estado de descomposición de su esbelto cuerpo. Incluso tal vez, su nombre haga referencia a la fragilidad del cristal en sí.

En cuanto a los más pequeños son quienes más experimentan los cambios. Empezando con Maddox, la mayor quien en una pequeña charla con otro de los personajes dice algo muy interesante al ser cuestionada sobre cómo se sentía con el repentino crecimiento de su cuerpo y ella responde: Es raro. Ayer veía pocos colores, pero todos eran muy vivos y atractivos, hoy veo más colores, pero todos me resultan apagados.

Kara la más pequeña en una conversación menciona: Ahora comienzo a entender esto. Ya no me asusta. Vienen a mi cabeza muchas ideas que puedo comprender ahora.

Es así como Shyamalan retrata el sufrir el paso del tiempo en un ambiente que prometía ser un espacio de relajación, meditación incluso para uno de los personajes que se encontraba en la playa para tener conexión con la gran naturaleza.

Hay varias referencias a algunas películas, una de las más interesantes y que seguramente sirvió de inspiración para el director como lo ha hecho para otras tantas películas sobre el tema es El Ángel Exterminador (1962) de Luis Buñuel, que como en Old, un grupo de personas asiste a una fiesta en una mansión, pero se sorprender al ver que no pueden abandonar la casa nunca más. La otra referencia es aquellos pensamientos que tiene el personaje de Rufus Sewell, Charles el médico que comienza a perder la cordura por completo y a ratos dice: ¡Sabían que hay Jack Nicholson hizo una película con Marlon Brando!. Y si, en efecto esa película se llama: The Missouri Breaks (1976) y a parte de la mención, no tiene al parecer nada que ver con la trama.

Una de las cosas que más disfruté fue ver a Gael García Bernal en un papel muy distinto a la mayoría de trabajos que ha realizado. Acá tiene un papel muy neutral, un padre que busca lo mejor para su familia a pesar de que está a punto de separarse de su esposa. No tiene estereotipos de nacionalidad, o alguna cosa que lo encasille. Al contrario, se siente la conexión con el resto del elenco mientras lo vemos actuar.

La cereza de este pastel del tiempo es Thomasin McKenzie que a pesar de su corta carrera ha llegado al corazón de su público gracias a su talento, pero, sobretodo a su exquisito acento neozelandés que le ha valido decenas de elogios. Lastimosamente en la película tiene muy poco diálogo, pero pues, es disfrutable.

Fuera de algunos movimientos de cámaras extraños que Shyamalan usa en momentos, Old se puede ver como una película que sobrevivirá en el tiempo muy bien. Interesante, fresca en su género, y lo suficientemente extraña para que haga voltear a nuevos espectadores al cine del director M. Night Shyamalan.

11.08.2021

[ryanmeft]

Movie Review: Old

I feel absolutely confident in saying that M. Night Shyamalan is a consistently bold and intriguing filmmaker in a time when audiences do not reward bold and do not want to be intrigued. It’s also true that boldness doesn’t always translate into skill. His latest thriller, about a group of upper class vacationers who end up trapped on a beach that ages them 50 years in a day, is confused about what it wants to be. Scientific treatise? Allegory on loss and acceptance? Character drama? Social commentary? Science-fiction mystery?

Like more conventional horror movies, the script is hasty in assembling the cast. Guy and Prisca Cappa (Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps) have brought their children Maddox and Trent (Alexa Swinton and Nolan River) to an extremely high-end resort. They hope to have one last good memory before an impending divorce and the reveal of Prisca’s tumor. Charles (Rufus Sewell) is a haughty doctor married to Chrystal (Abbey Lee), a much younger and self-absorbed social media wannabe and mother of Kara (Kyle Bailey). Charles has brought his ailing mother (Kathleen Chalfant) to the resort, as well. Patricia and Jarin Carmichael (Nikki Amuka-Bird and Ken Leung), a psychologist and a nurse, are thrown in to have a couple pointless characters to kill off, while Aaron Pierre shows up as a rapper named Mid-Sized Sedan. Have I mentioned I hate listing casts?

All of these people are invited to a special, secluded beach where they can get away from the hustle and bustle of the resort. I’d have skipped the resort AND the beach, and in this case that would have been wise. Within an hour of arriving, a dead body has washed ashore, and Maddox, Trent and Kara have aged into Thomasin McKenzie, Alex Wolff and Eliza Scanlen. Something is wrong, and the parents react by---holding lectures.

Throughout his career, one thing has been true of Shyamalan, and it remains true here: he really, really needs to swallow his pride and find a co-writer. In Old, his deficiency with dialogue reaches its nadir. There is no single line or exchange that is offensively bad. His characters simply rarely speak the way a human might. As their children age rapidly and their partners die of accelerated illnesses, they stand around discussing high-end medical issues and jargon about the magnetic centers of the earth as though they were giving a graduate lecture. I lost count of how many times a character says something along the lines of “Okay, we need to think this through”, and then proceeds to re-explain some facet of the problem that was just explained three minutes ago. Lee is never allowed to drop her Valley Girl persona. Pierre randomly starts carrying on about his New Age intentions for his trip. Amuka-Bird constantly breaks into conversations by rattling off vaguely inclusionary-ish jargon. Perhaps someday, someone will portray a psychologist (or a critic, for that matter) fairly on screen, but it is not this day. At almost every stage, a caricature is talking.

In other circumstances, I might praise Shyamalan for having characters who do not realize they are in a movie, but these guys are just plain dumb, no matter how many ten-dollar words they rattle off. It will not help Shyamalan’s reputation as a cold storyteller to note that, to the best of my recollection, the characters almost never cry. The lone exceptions to the standard rule of behaving as if they are in a really stupid classroom are Sewell and Mackenzie. The former experiences a new definition of rapid-onset dementia and schizophrenia so convincingly that it becomes the only truly frightening thing in the film. The latter is the only one who reacts to events with any kind of balance between logic and emotion. Whereas the others come across as either too dry or too dramatic, the tone throughout her scenes is exactly right, a mix of bewilderment and quiet horror. That she gives up so much screen time to the ineffective characters of Bernal, Krieps and Wolff is confusing. Shyamalan is not without an eye for casting choices. How could he have missed the fact that the movie should have centered around Maddox?

Instead, the characters given the least interesting things to say are also given the most screen time. It takes a special kind of focus to write an entire script and give actors of Bernal and Krieps’ talents nothing of value to say, but Shyamalan manages it. By their inevitable end, we feel only relief for them. They don’t have to be in this movie anymore.

Old has things going for it. Principle among these is the location, a secluded beach in the Dominican Republic, where Shyamalan and regular cinematographer Michael Gioulakis prove that claustrophobia isn’t necessary to create tension. The very fact that the prison is an open beach, the ocean stretching off into the horizon, is the only thing that keeps us mildly engaged when the writing saps all the thrills away. A few scenes, including a dangerously fast pregnancy and birth and a knife fight between people rapidly losing one or more of their senses, hint at what the movie could have been under more capable guidance. It is based on a graphic novel called Sandcastle, which I am told focuses more on the people and less on why the aging is happening. Had Shyamalan told that story, in that way, I do believe he could have made something great. The victims of the beach are supposed to wonder what might have been as they see time escape from them, and watching the movie, that’s what I wondered, too.

Verdict: Not Recommended

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

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[themosleyreview]

The Mosley Review: Old

There seems to be a 2 sided coin that constantly gets flipped in the thriller film genre. On the heads side you have a story that is gripping, pulse pounding and sometimes terrifying. On the tails side you have a story that is ambitious, but leaves so many unanswered questions by the end. There are few filmmakers that can find that perfectly rounded coin, flip it and have it land on heads. This film’s director has had his named engraved on that coin and has carried it his entire film career. It landed on heads many times, but more recently it has landed on tails. This film had the unfortunate luck of landing on the spine of the coin and it never lands on a particular side. The film has a ambitious plot and I liked how it unfolded but somewhere along the way, it got repetitive and lost that charm. The story explores many themes and fun ideas, but it boils down to a dull end. I'm trying not spoil anything here but I will say that the main family, was the only interesting part of this film.

Vicky Krieps was great as Prisca Cappa and she was one of the more level headed characters of the film. I loved how strong and accepting she was of the circumstances. Gael Garcia Bernal played her husband Guy and I felt the chemistry and tension between them as they fought about their marriage and her condition. The children, as you can know, grow at an accelerated rate and all the actors that played them throughout their ages were excellent. Alex Wolff captures Trent's innocence and fast understanding of life at age 15 and Emun Elliott nails his weary soul at the adult age. Thomasin McKenzie was outstanding as Maddox at age 16 and she steals the film. Embeth Davidtz plays Maddox as an adult and her chemistry with Trent was excellent. Eliza Scanlen was great as Kara at age 15 and she had a very heartbreaking moment that explains the depth of the time rules on the beach. Rufus Sewell was excellent and scary as Charles and sets off the tension very strongly. Abby Lee was good as his wife Chrystal and she had a truly intense moment of body horror. Nikki Amuka-Bird was great as the psychologist Patricia Carmichael and I liked that she tried to keep everyone sane. Ken Leung was great as her husband Jarin and the 2 of them were perfect together. Aaron Pierre as Mid-Sized Sedan / Brendan was good as he tried to figure out what was happening. He had a great comment about aging that I think I was the only one that laughed the hardest at in the theater, while everybody else didn't get. That was great.

The score by Trevor Gureckis was truly fantastic and very tribal at times. It built the suspense and charged the more terrifying moments. The cinematography was gorgeous and I liked the choice of shots that showed the details of aging. The visual effects mixed with practical effects were amazing and subtle. M. Night Shyamalan has always done great with thrills and delivered a great story hook, but this film felt like it lost its steam half way through. Every possible option is explored, but the resolutions don't particularly feel fulfilling. Overall, I thought it was a decent thriller with fun ideas, but its in the lower to mid tier of his filmography. Let me know what you thought of the film or my review in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

[cinemgc]

Old (2021, US)

• Dirección: M. Night Shyamalan

• Guion: M. Night Shyamalan

• Cinematografía: Michael Gioulakis

• Cast: Vicky Krieps, Embeth Davidtz, Emun Elliott, Thomasin McKenzie, Alex Wolff