Geekscape Movie Review: M. Night Shyamalan’s “Split”
M. Night Shyamalan returns to form with his engaging potboiler “Split” opening this weekend wide from Universal Pictures.
A man named Kevin (James McAvoy / X-Men) kidnaps three young ladies who come to discover that their captor has 23 distinct personalities.
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You’ve seen enough Shyamalan films over the years to know that his style is all about stories where you don’t know what’s going to happen next, and then when it happens, it’s not at all what you’d expect. That twist has become his signature move, and how well he takes us on the journey to that twist, is the defining aspect of his film being a hit or miss. “Split” easily classifies itself as one of his films that works and is true-to-form to what first put Shyamalan on the cinematic map. “Split” is definitely on the same page as his breakthrough film “The Sixth Sense” and later “Unbreakable,” but where those two films are quiet and somber this one is more visceral in scope.
“Split” is best enjoyed knowing little going in, so with respect to that I touch on only the most broad strokes of the film.
Easily the biggest factor to what makes the whole movie come alive is McAvoy’s performance. Not unlike Joanne Woodward who starred in “The Three Faces of Eve” back in 1957 who took home an Oscar for her role depicting three personalities, McAvoy takes it beyond the next level. His character is comprised of 23 personalities, of which 6 are featured in the film. With minor wardrobe changes, McAvoy convincingly portrays each character with different speech patterns, walks/shuffles, and idiosyncrasies that convey an impressive array of skill as an actor. Even so, Oscar rarely pays attention to films of this nature but in the genre of sci-fi thrillers, McAvoy kills it!
Running in hand with him is another striking performance from emerging talent Anya Taylor (The Witch) as the lead of the three who are kidnapped. She gave an enthralling performance in “The Witch” and takes some of that raw inner energy she brought to that role, and instills it in her character “Casey.”
Shyamalan pays attention to details in character development giving back-story as to why “Casey” is reacting the way she does. Doing so gives her character depth and gravitas so that the character feels real and reacts in ways that make sense avoiding mismatched character motivations so evident in films of this nature.
While “Split” isn’t quite on par with ‘The Sixth Sense” it far exceeds many of Shyamalans films in recent past. However it isn’t anything new and ground breaking, rather it’s just more of the same. “More of the same” meaning, his stories are generally about a situation that may or may not be supernatural but in the end probably is, and has twists, and probably another twist. That sums up all his films that come to mind. Shyamalan’s “Split” is ranked as one of the better incarnations of his repertoire as his characters are flushed out and equally well acted. The delivery of information is well-paced and the style is engaging mostly from start to finish. However because he didn’t break any new ground, despite the spectacular acting from McAvoy, the film scores just above average.
4 out of 5
