Split - Movie Review

M. Night Shyamalan has had a bad run as of late. His career started out very promising, with films like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable gaining great acclaim. He also became known for his plot twists, but they - like the public opinion of his career - started to be viewed more and more as a joke as time went on. Film after film seemed to get worse and worse, and he even directed what can certainly be called one of the worst films of all time, while butchering fantastic source material, The Last Airbender. After that little embarrassment, the studio didn't even put his name on the trailer for After Earth, and when that flopped, the age of Shyamalan seemed to be at an end, But then he made The Visit, which by all accounts wasn't absolutely horrendous, and now he's returning to a similarly small, contained thriller with Split.

If people have been waiting for a return to form for M. Night Shyamalan, I would say this is it. Split is the first movie of his since Unbreakable that I would call legitimately good. As a thriller, it's appropriately intense, and it's a fascinating exploration of the central character. After a birthday party, three teenage girls, Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), Claire (Haley Lu Richardson), and Marcia (Jessica Sula) are kidnapped by a man (James McAvoy). Although the man is named Kevin, he has 23 distinct personalities living inside of his head, and the ones currently in control have a plan for the girls involving an entity known only as "The Beast". While I've doubted for a while that Shyamalan can be considered a "smart" filmmaker, Split shows a return to a tightly-written, uniquely-themed storytelling style for Shyamalan, and proves that he really knows how to put a film together.

The core of the film, in terms of entertainment and intensity, lies in James McAvoy's performance. McAvoy gives one of the most impressive performances I've seen in a long time, and he's able to portray the different personalities inside of Kevin's head very clearly. He jumps around between the personalities all throughout the film, but each of them feel like their own distinct performance, to the point where I never really saw James McAvoy behind it all. He's able to completely lose himself in the different performances, and layer them on top of one another seamlessly. The personalities argue, some personalities impersonate others, and there's an internal conflict going on between them all inside of Kevin's head. The ideas of personalities forming alliances and how Kevin himself factors into everything is fascinating to watch unfold. It's a performance that's worthy of a lot of praise, and I hope that McAvoy gets some recognition when awards season rolls around. It was interesting to essentially have one guy being the villain and the comedic relief.

The interactions that the various personalities have with other characters is where the film really shines. Some scenes easily could have become goofy, but McAvoy's performance is so perfect, and the tone is kept so consistent, that it's just unsettling. Of the three girls, Casey is the real protagonist. She's certainly the most intelligent and the most capable, and is the only one who thinks to actually talk to the personalities, and see if she can get any of them to help. Watching how the teenage girls react to their situation felt fairly realistic, in that they looked at their options for escape very simply, and were too overcome with shock and fear to really think things out. But it was a bit of a disservice to the girls to just have Casey solve every problem with complete calm. While hysteria would certainly be running high, having the other girls find solutions, or even listen to reason would have been a welcome addition. It would have made the characters themselves more competent, and made them feel less like props.

The relationship that Kevin's personalities have with Kevin's therapist, Dr. Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley) is the most interesting. The most engaging scenes of the film come from watching Dr. Fletcher, who completely understands Kevin's personalities, deconstruct them, and attempt to help him. There's never any patronizing, or some dumb sub-plot where Fletcher is trying to make money off his story and write a book or something. Fletcher understands Kevin, and wants to share his story with the world, because she sees the potential that exists in him. Because of that, there's never a sense that the movie is treating the mentally ill as dangerous or as something to be exploited. In fact, the film makes a point of showing that Kevin's condition comes from trauma, which is reflected in Casey's backstory. There's an element of tragedy to the relationship between Kevin and Fletcher, as its resolution comes from a lack of belief, which is such an essential theme of the film.

Mental illness is something that Hollywood often has trouble with portraying. What I was very happy to see with Split is that Kevin himself is never treated as a villainous figure. Rather, the beliefs that certain personalities share leads them to take control, and Kevin is shown to be just as much of a victim as the girls are. Vilifying Kevin isn't the film's goal; showing the potential of this somewhat fictional version of Dissociative Identity Disorder is. There is a certain supernatural element to the film, which isn't made totally clear until the film's end and subsequent post-credits scene, so if you're looking for the definitive portrayal of Dissociative Identity Disorder, this film isn't really going to give you that. But, given the reveal in the final moments of the film, how the disorder is portrayed makes a lot of sense.

Simplicity is what makes this film feel so contained and claustrophobic. The environment that the girls are contained in is an industrial nightmare of hallways, and isn't dissimilar to Freddie Krueger's lair in A Nightmare on Elm Street. It's dark, dirty, and made all the more unsettling by how at home Kevin's personalities are there. The soundtrack also contributes to that off-putting atmosphere, with a low, repetitive, electronic score that grows and pierces through every scene. Tension is always present in the film, and there are very few moments where that tension is actually released. The climax was very engaging, and wrapped up in a way that felt narratively and thematically solid, rather than some hackneyed excuse for the story to resolve itself. The resolution of the story wasn't entirely satisfying, but I did let out a palpable breath of relief.

In the end, Split definitely feels like an M. Night Shyamalan film, but it's the first time that his style has worked in a long time. It has all the trappings of his films, including some awkward lines that don't sound like anything people would say. The pure audacity of the ending plot twist put a huge grin on my face, and the possibilities that it opens up for the future of Shyamalan's career is exciting. For the first time in my life, I'm actually interested to see what Shyamalan will tackle next, because he always finds something distinct, whether good or bad. I feel confident in saying that Shyamalan is back, and while this film is certainly not going to work for everyone, it worked well for me. It's a solid thriller, and while it doesn't set the world on fire in terms of style or story, James McAvoy's performance elevates it to a whole new level. It's one of the few good movies you'll see this January.