Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley
Rating: 15
Running Time: 117 mins
Release Date: 20th January 2017
Directed by the renowned M. Night Shyamalan, the once hailed ‘next Spielberg’, Split sees the continued partnership with Blumhouse Productions, famous for the Paranormal Activity, Insidious, Sinister, The Purge and Ouija franchises, but this time moving into the realm of the psychological thriller horror, focusing less on the jump scares, more on the narrative twists and turns. After his semi-revival with The Visit, his take on the found footage genre, Shyamalan takes a bigger risk for a bigger reward, bringing in the acting power of James McAvoy to portray 24 different personalities housed inside one body.
The trailers and ad campaign has kept the film’s wild expectations of silly over-the-top acting as close to its chest as possible, and the film doesn’t swerve into that territory rather highlighting McAvoy’s capabilities than flaws. For the $5 million produced films that Blumhouse pump out at an alarmingly quick rate, to be able to bring in someone as high quality as James McAvoy, shows the length of their progression into being one of the profitable businesses in Hollywood.
The film is split in more ways than one as it just doesn’t feel like a girl’s journey of escaping her kidnappers horrible clutches, but rather the story of three people, including McAvoy’s lead performance (or performances in the way you look at it), Betty Buckley as Dr. Karen Fletcher, and Anya Taylor-Joy as Casey. They each have a sizeable chunk of screen time, with the narrative pulsating across Dr Fletcher’s sessions with Kevin, her own research into the mental illness he and many others have, whilst also trying to explore the reasons behind Kevin’s personalities, the fable story of ‘The Monster’ and the kidnapped girls attempts at the escaping.
Whilst Casey is the inevitably ‘different’ teenage girl who seems more clued up than most in a situation where it seems there is no way out, through clever and both cringe inducing flashbacks, her coldness is explained and helps bring a solid foundation into her choices and into the development she has throughout the film. Both of those performances are fantastic and keep driving the story whilst also making us feel more for them than just throwaway characters that we will know will evitable die a horrible death (which normally occurs in the Blumhouse horror flick). But the main draw here is McAvoy’s 24 performances in one, which sounds impossible, and at the same time shows the craftsmanship in McAvoy’s acting, to be able to pull it off without too much agony. Moments of uncomfortable humour where he channels a 9 year old, dancing to EDM and referencing Kanye West, a 65 year old church going lady who wears a skirt and turtle neck and a mid thirties gay fashion designer sprinkle throughout the film to allow the audience to fall into a safe sense of security, in between moments of real horrid behaviour by the more dominating personalities in Kevin.
In its core it’s a tragic tale of a delusional person who grew up with horrible circumstances, causing this mental illness, which now manifests itself to believe in a monster to help his problem. And with many people coming out with negative responses to the film and it’s subject matter, it’s a poignant point in what does need to be addressed in using mental illness to be at the forefront of the reason why this guy is unstable, but having seen the film, it’s not as offensive as perhaps the trailers or synopsis portrays. Many advocators will cry ‘it’s only a film’, but sensitivity, even just to acknowledge that it exists and that it could attract certain people, perhaps could’ve helped, but I feel the use of Dr Fletcher is a way of showing how these people are as ‘more than human’ in their evolution to take different forms and different personalities, slanting it to be a weird superhero angle which worked for me, without it being over-the-top silly, but I can see where the issues could lie with the themes and concepts. Using the illness “dissociative identity disorder” or DID for short, to punctuate the seriousness of the condition; where this isn’t just a game of dress up. Rather its victims of severe abuse at a younger age, deeming it necessary to conjure up a new identity that can be stronger, smarter or whatever they want.
Kevin (McAvoy) uses the likes of Dennis, Patricia, Hedwig, Barry, Jade and Orwell to help cope with this terrible up-bringing he’s had, but not without some of these characters pushing different agendas like abducting underage girls to dance in their underwear. And with the villain of this piece also being the victim to his own problem, the swerve the audience has is great and works well to keep the guessing game going of what will happen next. Will Kevin finally come clean to the doctor? Or will he just let those girls go or will it end in tragedy? Perhaps this “beast” is real, will we ever see it.
The film does great work at building the slow anticipation of the characters development throughout the narrative, always one step ahead of the audience, and being genuinely hard to read. For a horror film to be able to pull that off in this generation is quite something with the tropes and the uniformity of what gore or ghoul horror films have come to be.
The performances of McAvoy, Buckley and the three leading female actress, Taylor-Joy, Richardson and Sula all combine really well to keep the plot moving at a steady pace and help re-direct in times of need. All too easy to fall into plot holes and delusions of grandeur, but the film works best when giving McAvoy free reign to let his acting capabilities shine through. To be able to, even in a single scene, twist from one personality to the next whilst maintaining the notion that they are in fact different people, helps bring a sense of truth to the character, in believing that are seeing genuine split personalities, that even with a change of a top or facial expressions, that each one has its own ticks and vocabulary that is easily recognizable from one to the next.
If you’re after a good horror film that knows it’s boundaries but can come up with a new angle, this is the film for you. Starting off 2017 with a side-splittingly funny but spin-chillingly creepy bar-raiser that sets the tone for the rest of the year, Split is the film to beat.
Verdict
saw it…it rules..
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