Split

If I could rate a movie based on its twist alone, this one would get a perfect score, but, you know, I can’t do that, so here’s the real review!!!

Split, yet another return to form for director M. Night Shyamalan, takes us on a psychological trip deep into the mind of Kevin (James McAvoy), a man suffering from a split personality disorder that sees his mental self broken up into 23 distinct personalities, all of which are fighting for the spotlight in order to control Kevin and turn their personal agendas into reality. After kidnapping three teenagers, Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), Claire (Haley Lu Richardson), and Marcia (Jessica Sula), and locking them in a room with no windows and no way out, Kevin’s 24^th personality, aptly named “The Beast”, begins to take shape, throwing our protagonists into a hellish world of mind games and disturbing circumstances with no hope of escape or contact with the outside world. But when Casey begins to take control of the situation it becomes clear that it’s only a matter of time before “The Beast” is unleashed, bringing Kevin’s mind to the breaking point and ultimately putting Casey and her friends in a grave situation worse than anything they can imagine. Now Casey must try and convince one of Kevin’s many personalities to help them break free from their prison, but with Kevin’s other selves vying for prominence, the task of getting out alive becomes that much more difficult and dangerous.

I’ll say this right off the bat: I gave this film a slightly higher mark than it might actually deserve, but I don’t regret it in the slightest. It’s one of those movies you know has issues, but could care less by the time you walk out of the theater and for me, the twist at the very end sold this entire experience, hook line and sinker. But I digress; we’ll get to that in a bit.

Anyway, like M. Night’s last film, The Visit, Split takes a few liberties in the scripting department as it lays down a solid yet flawed foundation for the story that follows, while at the same time allowing its inherent weirdness and slow burn thrills to fully come into their own by film’s end. Both scripts take an interesting approach to a relatively simple idea: The Visit was a tense yet muddled take on the found footage genre with a twist that turned the entire film on its head, and Split is more or less a survival/thriller film that follows suit in much of the same ways with the added bonus of having some truly brilliant scenes whenever McAvoy – and his other personalities – are on screen. As with most of the movies in M. Night’s filmography, the script for Split doubles as the best and worst parts of the film. Say what you will about the heavy use of twists in his stories, but Shyamalan excels in designing a narrative around a single scene that, in hindsight, changes the way you look at the film and sometimes is even powerful enough to redeem certain flaws when said twist is finally revealed. While that isn’t usually the best way to go about telling your story, the effectiveness of it all can’t be denied, and Split is no exception. Everything leading up to the final reveal of “The Beast” as well as the last 30 seconds of the film, screams of brilliance even if the end product falls just a bit short of expectations. Blame it on the stilted dialogue, the handful of expositional heavy conversations, the few silly scenes that don’t make sense, or even the odd use of a few uncomfortable yet necessary flashbacks that ultimately keep this film from being truly great, but overall, the script is solid enough and full of tension and intrigue that most of these flaws aren’t deal breakers.

Keeping the film grounded on a smaller scale works wonders in building up the tension and the “what the fuck” moments Shyamalan throws at us, but it’s the acting that really sells the script and concept of this film more than anything. The direction, while relatively strong in its own right, almost doesn’t matter in a film like this if the actors can’t sell the over-the-top and nerve-racking aspects of what’s going on onscreen, and with McAvoy and Taylor-Joy at the forefront of almost every scene, they rarely disappoint. As touched on above, the script stumbles from time to time in the set-up and dialogue department, but without these two leads the film would be much worse off. The incredibly unhinged, all-in aspect of McAvoy’s portrayal of Kevin really needs to be seen to be believed, and the scenes where he’s literally arguing with himself while seamlessly switching from one personality to another is probably the best and most well acted role of any of the various actors in Shyamalan’s back catalogue of films. Same goes for Taylor-Joy, who brings some much needed smarts and calmness to the script, further proving that after last year’s The Witch that Taylor-Joy is one of the most promising rising actresses in recent memory. The other two actresses playing Claire and Marcia, while seemingly trying their best, clearly got the short end of the stick considering their characters really don’t do much save for hammering home the shitty situation they’re all in. Throw in a solid performance by Kevin’s psychologist, Dr. Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley), that gives our antogonist a slight emotional core to anchor his travesties by, and you have a film that hits all the right notes albeit at varying degrees of success.

Bolstered by a truly unhinged performance by James McAvoy, Split stumbles a bit from time to time trying to set itself up for what comes later on, but gives audiences a unique trip into a terrifying situation that only gets better as the movie plays out. About as well put together as The Visit, but much more interesting and deftly directed throughout, Split shows that M. Night needs to get back to the grounded, simpler films that marked the highest points of his career if he’s to continue this forward momentum of redeeming himself in the director/writer’s chair.

And let’s not forget that twist!!! If its implications are to be believed, then Shyamalan fans have a lot to look forward to for his next project, and I’ll be first in line if and when that project comes to fruition.