They showed the trailer for SPLIT at a screening a few months back. When the words ‘from the Director of THE SIXTH SENSE’ popped up, there was an audible groan from the audience. Such was the state of the beleaguered director, but after last year’s fun THE VISIT, and now the wicked and witty thriller SPLIT, his best in years, M. Night Shyamalan’s fortunes are looking up. After minimal set-up involving a parking lot abduction, three teen girls wake up in a locked, windowless room. Two of the girls (Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula) are friends, while the third, Casey (Anya Taylor Joy) is an outsider. Their captor is Kevin (James McAvoy), who proceeds to both terrify and confuse them. One minute he’s Barry, a fey Brit, the next he’s a woman named Patricia, then he’s Hedwig, a nine-year-old boy, and then he’s Dennis, a slow janitor. Kevin has 23 of these personalities and since this is an M. Night, there’s a twist, and that has to do with Kevin’s 24th identity, one he’s preparing for and will reveal near the film’s climax, sorta like Derek Zoolander’s Blue Steel. Kevin visits Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley), his psychologist who delivers important background information. Is Kevin a psychopath holding these girls captive toward his own degenerate ends or is he saving them for something else?
Best enjoyed with a minimum of foreknowledge, SPLIT is not a great movie but it’s a well-plotted story that takes chances, goes in clever directions, and ratchets up tension. Some may find where it goes to be a silly place, but all the pieces nicely fit together, such as the clever way the reveal of both Mr. 24 and the mysterious locale tie together. McAvoy’s gives a committed, technical performance, kind and innocent one moment, intimidating and creepy the next. He never goes over-the-top like I feared he would (he was less disciplined as last year’s VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN) in a ridiculous role that could have been ruinous cast with the wrong actor (Shia LeBeouf for example!). The problem is that, as convincing as McAvoy is in pulling off all of these characters, they’re just not that interesting. Since we only see 5 or 6 of these personalities, perhaps the script could have better fleshed out the cast that existed in Kevin’s head. Also, I kept wonderiing why all these different identities were so comfortable with trussed-up teens in the house!
Anya Taylor Joy is solid as the resourceful final girl. Flashbacks to Casey as a child deer hunting with her dad and pervy uncle are well-integrated, showing how surviving an earlier trauma honed her survival skills. Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula are given little to do besides lose some of their clothes, steeling the audience for sex crimes that never happen. Betty Buckley (also in Shyamalan’s delirious THE HAPPENING) is good in a large role delivering copious amounts of psychobabble and plot explication (Sally Field in this role would have been a nice nod to SYBIL). A single flashback to Kevin abused as a child by his wire hanger-wielding mom is as obvious as the scene at the end of PSYCHO when the psychologist gives his overt explanation of the Norman/Mother divide, but less necessary. If SPLIT as a whole doesn’t quite hang together, it works in isolated set pieces. There are a number of bravura moments, including some lengthy, complex tracking shots through the bowels of this mysterious compound, while a shot of a dead victim yanked suddenly off-camera as if momentarily alive is as startling as a similar moment in Mario Bava’s BLOOD AND BLACK LACE. Shyamalan throws in one last surprise at the end, not a twist but a goofy fanboy nod that has nothing to do with the events that have just transpired, but I’m glad it’s there.
4 of 5 Stars
