Split

Released: January 2017

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Rated PG-13

Run Time: 117 Minutes

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Genre: Horror, Thriller

Cast:
James McAvoy: Dennis/Patricia/Hedwig/The Beast/Kevin Wendell Crumb/Barry/Orwell/Jade
Anya Taylor-Joy: Casey Cooke
Betty Buckley: Dr. Karen Fletcher
Haley Lu Richardson: Claire Benoit
Jessica Sula: Marcia

Let me ask you a question:  Have you ever walked down the video aisle of your local retailer and it seems that a movie seems to be staring at you, daring you to buy it?  Truth be told, that happens to me more often than I care to admit.  One would think that something is seriously wrong with me.  It’s possible.  Seriously, though:  You see this particular movie that for some reason intrigues you, but refuse to buy it, based on the name of the person that directed it.  Yet, you have heard so many good things about the movie.  Still, you keep avoiding it and avoiding and avoiding it.  Finally, you give in saying: “FINE! I’ll buy you!  Are you happy now?!”  Again, joking aside, I’ve done that multiple times.  I’ve gotten lucky on a number of occasion, and sometimes I have not.  When the movie has the name M. Night Shyamalan attached to it, I, like many others, have a strong and legitimate reason for avoiding it.  The movie in question is Split, starring James McAvoy.

The film opens as three teenage girls are leaving a birthday party when they are drugged and abducted by a mysterious stranger.  Waking up in a windowless room, the three girls are then confronted by the man who took them.  Some time later, the same man appears again, behaving much differently than before.  For a movie like this, it’s really difficult to describe the story without spoiling anything, and I don’t want to do that to you.  The man’s name is Kevin, but he suffers from a dissociative identity disorder, which is essentially multiple personalities.  Here’s the thing, though, Kevin has about 23 of these different personalities.  As a result, we have a kidnapping thriller that is anything but usual.  The story is very interesting and at times it’s really hard to tell what kind of movie we’re watching at times.  I’ve seen many kidnapping thrillers, but nothing quite like this.  I’ve avoided Shyamalan’s movies as of late, because of his tendency to put his ego before film-making.  Movies like Last AirbenderThe Happening, and After Earth were legitimately terrible movies.  He’s always tried to pull the rug out from underneath his audience in nearly every single movie he made.  So, yeah, I’m generally not a big fan of his, but Split is another creature entirely.

A huge reason for this movie working is James McAvoy as Kevin.  This is not the same thing as Andy Serkis playing two different sides of Gollum.  Oh, no.  McAvoy is essentially playing very different characters, that just happen to reside in one body.  Mr. McAvoy is one of the best actors in the industry.  He is an absolute chameleon.  His performance in Split is something to behold, especially when his personality switches to the 9-year old Hedwig.  This is very different from anything that I’ve seen from James McAvoy.  While this is definitely McAvoy’s show to be sure, everybody else though does a fantastic job.  Anya Taylor-Joy is really good as Casey.  She’s a phenomenal actress.  Overall, the performances in this film are astounding.

The writing is surprisingly sharp.  The dialogue is very natural and watching James McAvoy switch between personalities is a joy to see.  The movie is very unpredictable at times and that’s a very good thing.  I’ve seen to many thrillers fall into a predictable pattern in how the film ends.  Again, no spoilers, but this movie will surprise the hell out of you.  I like the fact that Shyamalan brought in a very real disorder that people suffer from.  While it certainly is exaggerated to an extreme here, switching between personalities is a very real thing, and some of the discussions in the film about it are very thought-provoking.  The tension in the movie is absolutely gripping, because of its unpredictability.  The characters are not stupid here.  They’re actually fairly well-written.  Again, McAvoy’s character is the spotlight, because the various personalities that inhabit his character are causing all sorts of chaos for Kevin.  While the character is definitely a villain, you can’t really hate him because of what he’s dealing with.  Half the time, he probably doesn’t even know he’s doing the things he’s doing.  He’s mostly a sympathetic character.

The only real negative here is that the film runs a little too long.  I think it could’ve been shave by about 10 minutes.  Otherwise, what we have here is a very taught, solid and thought-provoking thriller.  I have to admit, M. Night Shyamalan surprised the hell out of me with this one.  While I’m not about to say that Shyamalan has convinced me that he’s a great director due to some of his previous efforts, if he puts as much effort into his future endeavors as he has here, he’s going to win back a lot of people as fans.  Split is an absolutely phenomenal thriller with an astounding performance by James McAvoy.  It’s definitely one of the most unique experiences of the years.  Highly recommended.

Final Score: 9/10

 

 

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