Split

Rating: 6/10 (21 January 2017)

M. Night Shyamalan isn't the worst director of all time, but he's definitely been one of the most monumentally disappointing. Luckily, it seems he's come back with "Split", a dark, fun, psychological thriller. It's not perfect by any means, but this one definitely belongs in the former part of Shyamalan's filmography.
The first shot is Casey Cook sitting to the side, facing away from a group of girls her age that are taking a selfie together during a birthday party. We learn that Casey is a loner, and often acts up in class. She was forced into the party by a mercy invite, and she is forced to take a car ride with the birthday girl, Claire, and her friend, Marcia. Suddenly, they're kidnapped in a great moment that is done "Halloween" style (although not held out for as long), with a seemingly normal shot from a good distance away from the family, before the camera slowly gets closer to them and it is revealed to be a POV shot. The shot (and the scene in general) is an example of how visually impressive the film is, mostly due to the "It Follows" cinematographer, Mike Gioulakis. The only problem in this scene would be Casey's reaction, which is very unrealistic and could've been handled much better for sure, just like many other moments in this film. The writing for the most part is pretty good, even if there are definitely plenty of mistakes, such as one unnecessary and forced scene in which Kyle's therapist, Dr. Fletcher. The set up is that she is giving a speech over Skype, but this is just an excuse to force-feed information to us that was already obvious in the first place. There are plenty of incredibly stupid character decisions here and there, that exist solely as an attempt to make the situation more tense, even though it really just takes you out of the experience. Also, the obligatory M. Night Shyamalan cameo scene that he puts into every one of his movies does contain some cringe worthy attempts at humor, even if the rest of the humor in the film actually works. One element of the writing I can praise about this film are its characters. Casey is an empathetic character with actual depth. She seems to have a good relationship with her father, who we see teaching her to hunt and be self-reliant. At first it seems she also has a good relationship with her uncle, but in reality, she has been abused and raped by him throughout her life and forced to live with him after her father's death. Like Kevin, her uncle almost has multiple personalities, and like Kevin, she has gone through major trauma that has forced her to be completely self- reliant, and feel isolated. This story is her personal journey to becoming strong enough to truly stand up to her uncle, something she tried to do at a young age but couldn't ultimately follow through with. Anya Taylor-Joy's performance as this character is pretty great, definitely overshadowing the mediocre performance given by Haley Lu Richardson as Claire and Jessica Sula as Marcia. Kevin was a good character that was ruined by the lack of a significant arc. It is implied that his father took a train and never came back when he was young, and he was abused by his mother and bullied in school. Each prominent personality in the film actually has a psychological reason for being a part of him, because of his trauma. Hedwig is the child-like and afraid part of his mind; Patricia is his own mind's substitute for Dr. Fletcher, in other words the intellectual, calm, and therapeutic one; Barry is the cool and confident one that is taken over by Dennis, the overbearing and controlling aspect that he needed; and, finally, the Beast, a representation of his father, the dominant figure in his life that he was missing, one that he depicted as a monster and could only make up for by becoming a monster. This character and, by extension, the whole movie could've been laughably bad had the central performance of Kevin been lackluster, but luckily James McAvoy gives a great performance, with it probably being the highlight of the film. He truly transforms into 5 different characters in one body, and does each one with just as much skill as the last, flawlessly switching between each of them. The movie is incredibly dark and deranged and occasionally darkly comedic, often in quick succession. My largest complaint is definitely the ending. Shyamalan started his career with two film that have good twist endings, and for some reason thought it was a good idea to try to shoehorn one in for every film after that. I don't even know what to call the ending (or should I say endings) of this film. There was a good place this could've ended (on a shot of Casey), yet it continued to show an unnecessary moment where Kevin talks to himself for a couple seconds. Then I thought it would end there. It goes on for a little longer to show a scene in a random diner in which people are watching the news report of this event, before one horrible actor messes up her only line, and Bruce Willis makes an unnecessary last second cameo for no reason. It was really baffling.
Edit: Found out the end was related to "Unbreakable". Haven't seen it yet, but still, why?
The editing and shot selection during some scenes make them all the more intense, and the lack of jump-scares was definitely appreciated. The music was used sparingly, but it worked most of the time when it was used, save for maybe one scene in which I found the music choice off-putting. Despite all of the flaws I mentioned, the good aspects outweigh the bad ones, and this could be a return to the stories that Shyamalan does best: interesting, psychological, character driven thrillers.