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Once, each new film from M. Night Shyamalan was heavily buzzed, the director’s name splashed across the poster and trailers. Over the last decade, though, his career has taken a turn—and his films have gone from splashy summer releases to the quiet January release of eerie psychological thriller Split.
Split tells the story of three teenage girls who are kidnapped and locked away in a dark basement by a strange and unpredictable man (James McAvoy). It isn’t long before outsider Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) realizes that their captor isn’t just one man—he’s multiple personalities living inside the same body. In fact, he’s 23 separate men, women, and children—some friendly, some threatening. And as the girls begin to identify the characters, they try to figure out how to interact with each one in order to survive.
In recent years, Shyamalan has had to take a step back from his big, flashy films—and that brought him to 2015’s The Visit, an unsettling yet entertaining thriller. But while Split has loads of promise, it seems as though it isn’t really sure what it wants to be. Though the girls’ kidnapping and entrapment appear to be the focus of the story, it spends even more time on McAvoy’s characters—on their power struggles, their conflicting beliefs, and their frequent sessions with Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley), the all-too-trusting therapist who works with patients with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Admittedly, though, all of this is interesting stuff—and McAvoy gives a remarkable performance in a challenging role. He gives each identity expressions and mannerisms and behaviors, and the effect is as mesmerizing as it is chilling.
Considering how fascinating McAvoy’s performance is, it’s understandable that The Horde (as these personalities come to be called) quickly takes over the film. But there could be more here. Taylor-Joy’s Casey is another complex character—strong and smart yet secretly damaged. Yet she’s paired with a couple of spoiled, bossy, shrieking teenage girls who are more of an annoying distraction than a necessary part of the story. The film certainly could have given more attention to Casey and her interaction with The Horde—and while The Horde’s meetings with Dr. Fletcher do build suspense, they also drag the film’s psychological aspects out, making the film longer—and somewhat less thrilling—than it should have been.
In scaling back his films, Shyamalan has actually made them significantly more watchable. Split isn’t an outstanding film—and the final scene may leave audiences with a bad aftertaste. But a couple of solid performances and an interesting premise continue to help the director atone for films like The Last Airbender.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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