Split is the new psychological thriller brought to us by M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable) and stars James McAvoy as a man suffering from multiple personality disorderâŚand it gets creepy and suspenseful, as you expect from this director.
M. Night Shyamalan is actually a brilliant filmmaker. He has fallen on hard times lately and has made some really awful films, but that doesnât take away from the masterpieces he has crafted. I think itâs easy for the average viewer to see his latest work and think heâs an awful director. It is really easy to forget, in this adderall consuming ADD culture, the talent that Shyamalan once put on display. I think his first three films (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs) are truly all masterful works of cinema, with Unbreakable being one of my favorite films of all time. He went through a series of creative duds and unfortunate pictures, but I thought The Visit was a step in the right direction, considering I really enjoyed it. I am happy to say that Split is a return to form for the master and is Shyamalanâs best film since Signs.
This is a dark, disturbing, entertaining, and surprisingly funny psychological thriller with James McAvoy giving the best performance of his career. Letâs start with McAvoyâs performance: It is electrifying. McAvoy gives his all to this role and it really shows and provides the audience with one hell of a ride. A performance where an actor plays multiple personalities can easily appear as a show-off performance, but that is definitely not the case here. Yes, it is loud and he swings for the fences, but that is enmeshed with the subtle acting on display through the more reserved personalities of the character. McAvoy covers a wide range of emotions in this piece, but they all stay grounded within the world that Shyamalan is building. McAvoy knows the line to walk and knows when to throw himself at you, while also knowing when to pull himself back, and it is truly brilliant. If it wasnât for the release date and the overall content of the picture, I would promulgate McAvoyâs Oscar campaign. He is perfect in this film, and I just have to say, no spoilers of course, that he has one scene involving a songâŚand it is breathtaking. Itâs one of those magic moments in cinema that doesnât happen that often, and I was savoring every second of it.Â
Anya Taylor-Joy is also extraordinary in her role. What is wonderful about her performance is that there is disparity between her and McAvoy. While he is often loud in his portrayal, Taylor-Joy is enchantingly subtle. There is so much depth to her character that she portrays with a lot of small pieces trying to build to a puzzle, and most of this comes through her eyes, considering her character is largely quiet, and for good reason. She is really just beginning her career and I canât wait to see where it goes because this is probably the best she has ever been.
In a film like Split, you can have great performances, but you need some great direction to make it a great film. Luckily, Shyamalanâs direction is great. He is back in the spotlight and showing us why he was once our generationâs master of suspense. His ability to play with the audience and hide secrets within the narrative is unparalleled by most directors. He creates such a tense environment that had me gripping my seat and squirming to try and find comfort that I would never find. This film also does an astounding job at getting under your skin. For a PG-13 rating, Shyamalan really does go for it. I mentioned that McAvoy surrenders himself completely, but so does Shyamalan because this film takes the audience to places that some people might not want to go. Iâm not easily disturbed by film. I really enjoy violence in cinema and pride myself on being able to watch anything disturbing and violent, assuming itâs in good taste, but there is a place that this film goes that made me boil with heat and want to look away. The realistic nature of the disturbing moments are what make it work so well and I have to applaud Shyamalan for pulling this off. The cinematography is also perfect. The DP is Mike Gioulakis, who did the cinematography for It Follows, and he shoots this movie to perfection. The lighting is beautiful and poetically captures the mood of every scene. The actors look marvelous, the settings are breathtaking, and the third act is shot to perfection. Gioulakis was a brilliant choice to helm this film and it took it to even greater heights. The directing and cinematography is accompanied by some truly expert level sound design, and an original score that slides into the film flawlessly.
I do have some flaws with Split, but they are minuscule really. I think the acting from the other two teenagers, not Anya Taylor-Joy, can feel a bit wooden at times. Their lines just feel a little forced early in the film, but it it doesnât take up a lot of screen time. I also think the film takes a moment to really find its footing. When I say that, I feel like the pacing is just slightly shaky in the early part of the first act. However, once the film gets planted, it takes off running.
There were also some moments where I started to question if certain things were working with the film, but that is intentional by the filmmaker. As an audience, just trust Shyamalan to take you where you need to be. He truly respects his audience, so he expects you to respect him as well. Go with it and give it a chance because I think youâll like where you go.
Split is an absolute blast at the cinema, and I canât wait to see it again. I canât stop thinking about it or talking about it. Please check it out if youâre a fan of unique films because I think you might enjoy it. M. Night Shyamalan is back making the films he should be making, and if you are a fan of his work then I think this movie just might have you dancing upon exiting the theater.
The first thing that needs to be said is that James MacAvoy is an amazing actor. He takes his role in this film seriously and with respect. It is because of his acting that I am so conflicted about the whole thing. There are many problems with this film. From here on out there will be spoilers.
As far as I am aware I am neurotypical. So there will be limits to the relevance of my opinion, however, I think that the premise of the movie had potential. That being said I think there needs to be a lot more groundwork done in terms of healthy, positive representations of mental illness. Simply giving someone with a mental illness superpowers and say itâs evolution is to miss the point of comics like the x-men. To then turn that character into a monster is even worse. The groundwork needs to be done because when MacAvoy was portraying Patricia, a female identity, the audience laughed, not through design of the script or acting but because of a lack of understanding. This was made even more frustrating as the character has many identities where their main motivation is not wanting to be made fun of. The audience misses the point and fails to see the irony of the situation.
The treatment of abuse in this film is terrible. Used as a plot device with very little regard to character development other than as the reason that Casey is a loner that doesnât have any friends. Again this seems like a missed opportunity to have a positive depiction of someone who has suffered from abuse. There doesnât feel like there is any character growth for Casey. She starts running away from her abuser and ends being taken back to her abuser. It feels like she is being forced to be a victim for the entirety of the movie even when she is supposedly finding strength which just doesnât feel right to me. I really hope that there arenât plans to bring out a new franchise that makes a new superhero team from this. I donât think I can handle M. Night Shyamalanâs Justice League. Not when he treats serious issues with an attention to details that evoke the negative. Victims are victims and illness makes a monster.
Split is a horror/thriller written and directed by M Night Shyamalan. It takes place in the same universe as Unbreakable, and follows Casey (Anya Taylor Joy), a teenage girl who gets kidnapped along with two other classmates. She wakes up in a room, and soon the girls find out that their captor might be even more dangerous and crazy than he first appeared.
Iâm in a precarious position with this film; I hadnât seen it when it came out, and now, years later, knowing what the main twist is, and having seen the trailer for the sequel Glass, many of the things in this film fell flat for me. Twists and turns that shouldâve been shocking left no impact because I already knew exactly what was happening. This isnât to say that I didnât like anything about this film, or that my problems with it were only because I knew the premise and outcome, but I would be lying if I didnât say that it significantly diminished my enjoyment.
So seeing as Iâm about to see Glass in a few days, letâs go over some of the things that worked and didnât about Split; warning, there will be SPOILERS.
Kevin (and the other 23):
The main drive to see this film from the very first trailers and marketing was James McAvoy, who plays Kevin, and 23 other personalities all trapped in his body. Now, what this film does, is it takes the idea of multiple personality disorder, and takes to a whole new level, where not only are all these different personalities completely unrelated to Kevin, but they are entirely different people. When someone âtakes the lightâ (controls Kevinâs body) their appearance doesnât change, but their physical abilities do; some of them have diabetes, some have OCD, some are female, some are physically very strong, and some have the strength of a child.
This is all explained to us through the character of Dr Fletcher, Kevinâs psychiatrist who specializes in treating patients who have this disorder called DID.
Now, for the film, this is both a virtue, and a flaw. Because this McAvoy was the focus of the marketing, the scene where the girls realize Patricia and Dennis are not two different people, is meant to be terrifying and confusing; itâs shot and presented like a revelation, a shocking twist. But it isnât; we already know Kevin has multiple personalities because the trailer and the marketing told us so!
Additionally, why does Kevin have 23 personalities? We never see more than 5 max, and even still we only really follow 4: Dennis, Patricia, Hedwig and the Beast. We get a glimpse here and there of  4 other personalities, but thatâs about it. The film could have easily been about 5 personalities instead of 23, but I guess 23 sounds more impressive even if we never see the majority of them.
The 4 characters we do see were all interesting and engaging. I give major props to McAvoy; he nails this part. They all have distinct personalities, mannerisms patterns of speech and even move differently based on the character. I was afraid he would overreact a lot of the scenes, but he is surprisingly subdued, and is a major factor into the filmâs creepiness and atmosphere.
Dennis is the ring leader and he has OCD, and is a germaphobe. Itâs also implied that he may have pedophilic tendencies, though I wasnât clear on whether those were his or Barryâs or even Kevinâs. He was by far the most proactive of the personalities and the creepiest; I liked that his germophobia and OCD were products of Kevinâs childhood trauma (since his mother used to beat him if heâd make a mess), and I really enjoyed his increasingly unhinged attempts to convince Dr Fletcher that he was Barry.
His interactions with the girls were also creepy, and there was a prevailing sexual threat in all of his scenes with them which was incredibly unsettling.
Patricia was who the film builds as the ringleader of the Horde, while Dennis was the muscle. She reigns Dennis in, and seems to be the one who came up with the story of the Beast. Itâs difficult to tell if the Beastâs sick moral code and dogma come from her and Dennis twisting Dr Fletcherâs speeches on DID patients, or if she accepted them from the Beast himself. She too gets a standout scene where she makes sandwiches and itâs pretty effective.Â
Hedwig was the character I liked most, and I canât believe Iâm saying that watching James McAvoy pretend heâs a 9 year old with a lisp was the best part of this film. Gain, McAvoy is rather convincing in the part of a 9 year old boy trapped in a grown adultâs body, coloring all the scenes between him and Cassey in a layer of yikes, especially the scene where he asks to kiss her. But heâs also genuinely funny and gets the best dialogue and scenes in the film, and I enjoyed every time he was on screen.
The Beast:
Now, the Beast is somewhat of a twist in the film, in that heâs not one of the 23 personalities, and many of them (including Dr Fletcher) donât even believe he exists. Turns out he does exist and he was born on the train on which Kevinâs father escaped from Kevin. I found him being an amalgamation of a bunch of the animals from the zoo where Dennis works clever, like his powers being having skin like a rhinoâs hide, strength of a lion, and the agility of a monkey. I liked that he goes after the two girls specifically because of an incident that happened to Dennis, where two teenage girls pranked him. I even liked again, how his philosophy about taking over the world and getting it rid of weak people, people who are not âbrokenâ was really a twisted version of Dr Fletcherâs speech about how through trauma DID patients become more than human.
What I didnât like was, well⌠look his powers are fucking stupid alright? He eats people. He is a human man who eats raw flesh and hasnât died yet. Like⌠maybe I can suspend my disbelief that one of the personalities has diabetes, and maybe even that the Beast can somehow survive getting shot point blank in the chest, but this whole eating people thing was just so dumb! And the whole debate of who is broken and worthy and who is weak and unworthy was also so dumb. He also doesnât have any character arc or even a conclusion. Itâs just the Beast wants to eat people, and in the end he eats people. The end. There is no climax to his story, no revelation or realization, itâs just he can eat more people now. Great.
Useless Characters With 0 Agency:
I will own up to the fact that Iâm not a huge fan of kidnapping plots, and 90% of that is because I hate that no matter how many times the person who gets kidnapped tries to escape, they inevitably must fail, so that whoever does the rescuing can save them at the end. I thought this case might be different, since Casey is, at first, presented like a fairly competent character, and I thought, maybe, she could escape. But boy oh boy was Casey a plank of wood.
First, I understand why she would be having trouble at school and connecting to other peers because of he backstory, but why she was so needlessly rude, mean and uncooperative with the other two girls that are captured was beyond me. The girls are perfectly nice and kind to her, they want her to escape with them, and in a way they are right; three of them, vs one of Dennis is still better odds, no matter how âstrongâ Dennis might be.
Then there is the fact that she does nothing for over 90% of the film. She attempts to escape once, and even then she doesnât really; she steals Hedwigâs walkie talkie, and I canât tell if itâs Joyâs acting or Shyamalan's direction, but he reaction at having her last hope of escape snatched away from her was nowhere near appropriate enough. She spends most of the film being extremely subdued and confused, and even in the very last section, where she does actually take the shotgun, nothing she does is even remotely effective against the Beast.
Also who TF decides running into a cage and locking themselves in, with only 2 rounds of a shotgun is A SMART IDEA? ESPECIALLY SOMEONE WHOâS BEEN HUNTING HER WHOLE LIFE?
Her backstory was genuinely upsetting and creepy and I hated all of those scenes, but they were effective and achieved exactly what they needed to to set up her character. What I didnât like or get, was Casseyâs ending. She never confronts her uncle; we never even see him after the last flashback and I guess maybe you could argue that itâs implied that Cassey would tell the police officer what heâs been doing to her, but thatâs such a stretch and unnecessarily vague ending that I donât know why it was there.
Like Kevin and the Beast, Cassey has no character arc. She wasnât vain or shallow or âhad felt no painâ like the other 2 girls; there was no character flaw she needed to overcome. If anything, her character flaw seemed to be that she was passive, but she doesnât learn not to be by the end; she is exactly the same at the end as she was at the start, except slightly more traumatized.
The other two girls are non-entities. I donât understand why the film bothers to introduce them only to have them disappear a third way in, I didnât like that the film punished their attempts to escape and be proactive for no reason and I didnât like the message. Neither one of those girls were mean or catty or vain; they were regular teenagers. Claire invites Cassey to the birthday party even though she shows no interest to be there, she tries to get her to join them against Dennis, they are never rude to her? If you wanted the audience to hate them, you need to actually give us reasons to hate them; like this it just seems like the film agrees with the Beast that teenage girls are really horrible, just for existing!
I also really hated the wasted time of showing Marcia trying to open the locker with the hanger. Why linger on that scene for so long if you wonât even show us the outcome? We just see sheâs dead in the next scene and thatâs it. That part genuinely made me angry, because the film had been so good at representing women up until that point, and it was such a disappointment.
Dr Fletcher was probably the worst part. She spends the movie telling us about Kevinâs condition, and talking to Dennis. She realizes quickly something is wrong, realizes that there is something dangerous about Dennis and the fact that he wonât let her talk to any of the other characters, realizes that the Beast is likewise a dangerous thought and does have the good sense to go to the Zoo and seek Dennis out. BUT sheâs also dumb enough not to let anyone know sheâs going, she doesnât immediately call the police after Dennis gives her a speech every serial killer would think is a bit much, and doesnât take any precautions to make sure sheâs not followed when she finds Cassey and STILL TRIES TO REASON WITH DENNIS EVEN AFTER SHE SEES WHAT IS HAPPENING! She was a completely useless character; sheâs only there for exposition and thatâs entirely it.
Pacing:
The very last thing I want to touch on is the pacing. Shyamalan is known for very slow films; he likes lots of slow tracking shots, he lets the camera linger on scenes that could easily be cut, he likes his long establishing shot, awkward pauses in dialogue, etc. These are all stylistic choices; you can argue about their merit, but at the end of the day, if youâve seen one of his films and didnât like how slow it is, you wonât like any of them. My issue is that a lot of this film could have used some editing. I already mentioned how the entire subplot with Marcia and Claire is at once superfluous and doesnât need to take up that much time considering its conclusion, as well ass Dr Fletcher having a lot of circular dialogue scenes in which she just explains DID over and over again. The pacing was glacial; I genuinely think that some quicker cuts and scenes would have benefited it so much, and maybe another draft of the screenplay, tightening up the story and giving the characters actual arcs and conclusions.
Conclusion:
Itâs fine. Honestly, I didnât care much for it, but it wasn't a bad film. There is a lot good in it, but the some of its parts isnât stronger than some individual scenes and James McAvoyâs acting. I will still watch Glass and I do think you should check it out if it sounds at all interesting; just donât expect a masterpiece.
Split was released in 2016 and directed by M Night Shyamalan, it is the second movie of a trilogy that being a sequel to Unbreakable and followed by Glass due for release at the end of this month. It stars James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy and Betty Buckley with a small cameo from Bruce Willis.
The film follows 3 teenage girls that are abducted by Kevin, a man with 23 distinct personalities and they are locked up in a basement somewhere and must figure out how to escape before the 24th personality is awoken and comes for them as the others have warned.
Split is miles above the first movie Unbreakable right off the bat, the pacing is much better and there is more happening, i would loosely compare this movie to the psychological thriller 10 cloverfield lane and this is actually one of M Nightâs best movies in a long time as a lot of his movies havenât been great in recent years.
McAvoy is fantastic in this role and he really is convincing, i never doubt that he has all these personalities and he is able to bring each one forward with believability.Â
I would say the three teenage girls in the movie are average, they do make the movie feel like more of a horror movie in the way that they react, thank god we have McAvoyâs performance because he holds this movie together all by himself.
The cinematography is good but i wouldnât say its better than Unbreakable, not every shot was creative or interesting and it felt more like a traditional horror at times.
One of my favourite moments in the movie that had a lot of suspense was when he is crawling across the ceiling and he is punching out the lights, that was really creepy and i enjoyed the third act a lot.
All in all its not as good as some of M Nightâs earliest works, but its a much more enjoyable experience than Unbreakable and the pacing is much more tolerable.
â â â ½ This was a fun thriller/horror movie with some interesting ties to Unbreakable, McAvoy holds this movie together on his own and i loved the third act. Itâs a shame some of the supporting cast were not up to par and the cinematography wasnât as strong as i had hoped.
