On the bright side, there’s a nice cameo/easter egg at the end of the film that will leave Shyamalan fans asking many questions.
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As for next week, “A Dog’s goal”, one more adorable movie about what your damn dog is thinking. But the movie greatly benefits from these lowered expectations, because even though it has some noticeable flaws, the fact that it does anything right comes across like a major triumph. For instance, when the film’s villain, a man suffering from dissociative identity disorder played by James McAvoy, teases that there’s an as-yet-unseen 24th personality to join his other 23, you immediately realize that, yeah, this so-called “Beast” must exist, regardless of how much his therapist says otherwise. He sees a counselor (Betty Buckley) once a week as Barry, a friendly fashion designer. Their scheming and escape attempts balance the less intense scenes in which the dominant personalities calmly discuss their next course of action while trying to stifle calls for help by the other identities. Like Dennis, a perverted OCD germaphobe. Two of the victims (Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula) are well-adjusted, popular girls; the third-and principal protagonist-is a loner with psychic scars of her own (Anya Taylor-Joy, from last year’s The Witch). Does he mean literal food? This is a sore point – by the third act, they feel more or less to be a plot device – and while Taylor-Joy’s past and character remains important, we find out about her backstory far too little, far too late, and as a result her story is not fairly sewn into the plot’s narrative enough to resonate quite as well as it could have. There’s no need for explicitness with two dozen deranged weirdos prowling around and one actor playing them all to the hilt. Four of them take the lead: Barry, a fashionista with a heavy NY accent; Hedwig, a playful nine-year old boy; Dennis, a quietly sinister, obsessive compulsive control freak; and Patricia, a regal old lady who thinks she knows it all. And the twinkly delight that Patricia takes in a sandwich she has made for the girls-“It’s good”. Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson are both wonderful in their opposing roles, and the film itself remains one of the best of its kind even though it won’t ever be considered in the same breath as modern superhero films.
So the return of Willis’s David at the end of Split is a big deal for Shyamalan superfans. For someone who’s made Kevin her life’s work, Dr. Fletcher is gobsmackingly clueless about what he’s capable of (especially given that one personality keeps trying to tell her what the others are doing). There are those who criticize Split for following Hollywood’s inclination to exploit mental illness for the objective of delivering scares, while others still question the need for making more movies about hunting down barely clothed teen girls. It goes back to the old adage with a modern twist: It’s not me, it’s you, and your personality stinks. One day, Kevin abducts three girls as one of his personalities named Dennis and takes them to an underground cellar. Character development is crucial in most films.
But after a small hit with 2015’s “The Visit”, I’m relieved to say Shyamalan is back with a fantastic return to form.
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Rated PG-13 for disturbing thematic content and behavior, violence and some language.
