Editing Old (2021) (section)

== Themes ==
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When ''NME''<nowiki/>'s Beth Webb asked about the different themes tackled in ''Old'', Shyamalan responded, "It's definitely about our relationship to time and, in my opinion, our dysfunctional relationship to time that we all have. Until we're forced to examine it, whether it's a pandemic or the factors that are in this situation for these characters, they're trapped on this beach, and they have to reflect on their relationship over time. You see some characters unable to navigate this, and then some characters find peace. Why did they find peace, and how did they find peace in the midst of all of this chaos? So there's this conversation about that, the one that I'm having of myself with time."

At the Tribeca Film Festival, Shyamalan said that the film's focus on aging reminded him of his father, who has dementia, and his children as he watches them grow up. During the event, Alex Wolff compared the film to the COVID-19 pandemic, "Coming out of COVID, it feels like time just stopped. And that's what the movie's literally about." At the film's premiere, Wolff was asked for his interpretation of the film and said it was "an allegorical existential sort of meditation on getting older." Other cast members chimed in; Nikki Amuka-Bird said the film was about not taking nature for granted; Gael García Bernal said it was about questioning how time travels differently for other people; and Vicky Krieps found that it was about "love and family and all these things that are much stronger than any fears — the fear of aging and the fear of death."