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Shyamalan Splits from Bad Movies


          Eighteen years ago M. Night Shyamalan was introduced to the world with a very good film called The Sixth Sense. However for well over a decade his movies have become synonymous with trash cinema: atrocities like Lady in the Water, The Happening, After Earth, and of course The Last Airbender, which was an insult to one of the great animated series. But after last years’ The Visit some have been saying Shyamalan’s making a comeback. Is that true when it comes to his latest film, Split?
          Three girls are abducted by a psychopathic man (James McAvoy) with multiple personality disorder, who’s real name is Kevin, and trapped away in an unknown location. As Kevin’s therapist tries to figure out what’s going on with his inconsistent behaviour, the girls must figure out a way to escape before one of their captors’ personas kills them.
          It really feels like with this premise, Shyamalan is trying to out-Psycho Psycho. There are definite Hitchcock motifs, from as early as the style in the opening credits. But this is also a modern horror movie and as a modern horror movie, it deals with the trademarks pretty well. There aren’t much in the way of jump scares and the suspense is built quite adequately, shot superbly. Even though you know nothing about these girls you are invested in their safety merely by the conditions around them. It reminds me a little of the poor girl in the hole in Silence of the Lambs. However there are still story failings. As decent as the main plot is, the second storyline which is centred around the therapist isn’t very good when McAvoy’s not in a scene. The main girl also is given a backstory treatment that’s loosely connected to the primary plot but doesn’t blend well and feels needlessly shocking. Also, the writing isn’t very good. McAvoy gets away with the awful dialogue because of his character, but the rest of the cast can’t and it makes some dialogue-heavy scenes awkward. There are also a number of plot holes and moments where you really question what the characters are and aren’t doing, and why. For instance, at one point it’s suggested that after days in captivity a couple of the girls are only now looking for a tool to escape.
          Shyamalan’s been known to not get good performances out of good actors (Mark Wahlberg in The Happening anyone?), but James McAvoy comes out of Split alright. He’s definitely over-the-top as a couple of the personalities, especially a child called “Hedwig”, but never to the point that he completely takes you out of the scene, or the just general over-the-top nature of the premise. This is a man with twenty-four identities after all, which is pretty unbelievable. You have to accept a few things like that and as long as you do, McAvoy carries the film. Betty Buckley does okay as his therapist and the girls played by Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, and Jessica Sula are fine as far as horror movie victims go. Taylor-Joy is the most focussed on and at times she’s unrealistically composed which kind of makes sense in light of her poor back-story, but there are certainly points where it doesn’t work. Oh yeah, and like Hitchcock, Shyamalan likes to appear in his own movies. At least it’s a brief cameo in this one.
          When it comes to Shyamalan movies, everyone is always keeping an eye out for the twist. And this one is certainly interesting and not something I saw coming. Without giving anything away, the last act of this movie is incredibly ridiculous, taking the story in a bizarre direction, and in the moment it feels like the movie has just derailed and jumped the shark. But in the last minutes of the film, the reveal comes and surprisingly makes sense of it all. This twist ending is a bit of a deus ex machina but it works okay, making most of the climax less of a horrible, goofy plot device. There are definitely going to be some though who aren’t going to get it, especially if they aren’t familiar with Shyamalan, and others who will outright dislike it for attempting to excuse the inanity that occurred before it. It’s a twist designed to answer for some otherwise awful plot points after all. It just happens to be done in a clever and unexpected enough way.
          The fact that this movie is unexpected on multiple levels is a good sign for its director. It’s overall a pretty decent film, which is a really promising sign for a filmmaker gradually reinvigorating his craft. I think having his budget scaled back, and a focus on more claustrophobic films like this rather than big CGI epics a la The Last Airbender and After Earth, is the best thing for him. And if movies like Split are in his future we may find ourselves once again looking forward to the next M. Night Shyamalan movie.

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