Kidnapped

Rating: Null/10 (5 February 2017)

Upon discovering that the man who has kidnapped them has a multiple personality disorder, three teenage girls try to manipulate his more benevolent personalities into helping them escape in this horror thriller from M. Night Shyamalan. The film features two distinct plot lines as the kidnapper, played James McAvoy, separately converses with his psychiatrist and interacts with the girls he has kidnapped. Tension sometimes dissipates as the film switches back and forth, but McAvoy's intense and unsettlingly unpredictable performance keeps the film is chugging along. The best performance though comes from Anya Taylor-Joy (of 'The VVitch' fame) as the most introverted of the three kidnapped teens who nevertheless knows the best ways to deal with their abductor; Shyamalan's camera constantly hangs close to her face as her wide-open eyes and nervous glances convey volumes. As the film progresses, we gradually learn that she has suffered past trauma as per McAvoy, though the film's reluctance to explore her past experiences in depth (we only get the briefest of suggestive flashbacks) never feels right. The element of the film that sits least comfortably though is the fact that we are told that McAvoy has 23 distinct personalities, yet we only ever see eight of them and we are given no compelling reasons why he would have so many personalities aside from it sounding rather creepy. That said, the film offers several thought-provoking views on individuals with such a condition, questioning whether they are not in fact "more evolved" and whether curing such a condition is really the answer.