Split (2017)

Review

117min

Genre:       Horror, Thriller

Director:    M. Night Shyamalan

Cast:         James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson…more

Writer:      M. Night Shyamalan

-Synopsis-

When three teenage girls are kidnapped and held captive by a troubled man with 23 distinct personalities, they must find a way to escape before his most fearsome incarnation is born in this horror/thriller from the writer/director of ‘The Sixth Sense’ and ‘Unbreakable’.

After a promising career start, followed by a mixed bag of dramatic thrillers and mystery sci-fi over the course of a decade or so; ‘Split’ signals writer/director M. Night Shyamalan’s long overdue return to form as he combines his unique view on ‘dissociative identity disorder’ (aka split personality), with an extreme and disturbing take on Descartes‘ ‘I think, therefore I am’ and the power of the mind over the body.

James McAvoy delivers a tour-de-force central performance starring as several characters trapped in the body of disturbed young American ‘Kevin’, struggling against each other to reach his outward surface and ‘come into the light’. When his two more dominant and sinister personalities take control in the interest of ‘self preservation’, he kidnaps three teenagers (Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula) with the malevolent intent of unleashing a 24th and more frightening persona. But when one of the girls proves to be a misfit and forms a tentative connection with her troubled captors, her past may be the difference between certain death or surviving this harrowing ordeal.

After spending the last decade making utterly forgettable big-budget blockbusters and then reigning-in the scale with his largely disappointing supposed comeback in 2015’s horror/thriller ‘The Visit’, Shyamalan finally lands on a satisfying formula here and hits the lead performance jackpot thanks to Mr. McAvoy. The result is a tense and moody thriller which builds with menace while just about keeping you gripped throughout, within a narrative that’s loosely related to if not rooted in some of the social themes explored in Shyamalan’s 2000 hit ‘Unbreakable’.

‘Split’ is however by no means a perfectly polished piece, but instead a film which bears the marks of a filmmaker still struggling to evolve; from underwritten supporting characters to the overly familiar horror/thriller ‘captive’ sub-plot, and a narrative which strains to combine serious themes of purity, mental illness, abuse and childhood trauma with  implausible horror/fantasy and dark comedic undertones… plus the obligatory context-altering Shyamalan twist.

But Shyamalan has crafted a novel and fascinating central premise here while making a noble effort to entertainingly flesh out the concept of ‘mind over matter’ and the potential of the human brain, all of which works thanks to the two well-written central characters brought to life by yet another solid performance from impressive young up-and-comer Anya Taylor-Joy and the extraordinary turn from James McAvoy, who lets loose his inner-thespian beast in a performance which ranges from subtle to gloriously grandiose, amounting to his best since 2006’s ‘The Last King of Scotland’ and arguably a new career highlight.

Any film deals which with mental illness in the 21st century is bound to ruffle some feathers, particularly in the context of the sufferer being malevolent and villainous in any way, and unsurprisingly ‘Split’ has caused some controversy even before its release…then again what doesn’t nowadays. No doubt Shyamalan is to some extent exploiting the subject matter for dramatic effect, as much as he’s making a point about the nature of mental illness within our society and the victimisation of those who’ve suffered emotional trauma.

But this ain’t a drama or a documentary and the narrative plus McAvoy’s psychological characterisations are treated with care and are never one-dimensional, within a performance so accomplished that you’ll be convinced you’re watching several distinct personalities, with both innocent and sinister intentions and believable motivations, apart from maybe one… just don’t expect to see them all.

The Bottom Line…

Despite some genre clichés and narrative limitations, M. Night Shyamalan manages to weave a fascinating central premise into a gripping and unsettling psychological horror/thriller, largely thanks to a remarkable lead performance from James McAvoy. ‘Split’ mercifully avoids relying on cheap jump-scares or the customary final twist which turns the story on its head, instead opting for a more subtle ending turn which makes the film a part of something bigger… and perhaps a taste of things to come from a resurgent writer/director.

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

When the daughter of a U.S. senator is kidnapped by a serial killer intent on a gruesome self-transformation; a young FBI agent-in-training turns to a captured brilliant and manipulative cannibalistic murderer to find her before it’s too late, but her unlikely ‘partner’ proves to be more than a pawn in this deadly game of cat and mouse in Jonathan Demme’s multiple award-winning modern classic.

Directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins and Ted Levine among others.

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