Split

Split

Released: February 2017

Starring: James McAvoy

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

One of those lovely films which does exactly what you’d expect it to. Although with an M. Night Shyamalan film, that’s pretty much the last thing you’d expect.

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Three young girls are kidnapped and held hostage by a man with 23 different personalities. Who is this man, where are they being held, how can they escape, and who is “The Beast” that he keeps referring to?

Before I sat down to watch Split I did some cheeky maths. With 23 different personalities residing inside James McAvoy’s head and a 117-minute run time, we would be looking at up to five minutes of dedicated screen time for each of them. If the entire film was just one man talking to camera and changing his stance every now and then. Split deals with this predicament in a way which, I at least found satisfying; by only giving any real screen time to a small number of the personalities, with the rest only making cameo appearances. But, this strategy also leaves you wondering if perhaps 10 personalities would have sufficed, and gifted time to other aspects of the film, or perhaps to better rounding some of the personalities encountered.

Split is at its best an entertaining thriller. But at no point does it really have you guessing, or kept on the edge of your seat. My main issue with the film is that, despite the main character, Kevin, having 23 different personalities, everything feels remarkable predictable. This could be that, in various guises, Split has been made (and made very well) previously. Of course, the girls will manage to stumble over various escape routes, and of course they will unbolt that door in the nick of time, we’ve seen it happen before. Instead of playing by all of the tried and tested tactics, the film could gain from the door not unbolting, or routes out not being forthcoming.

But honestly, the thrills aren’t particularly thrilling, and the peril isn’t especially perilous, which is entirely down to the film itself. Early on it is established that the none of the personalities will harm Kevin’s captors until ‘The Beast’- a personality with nigh on superhuman abilities- arrives. Now, if you’ve even watched as much as a hint of a trailer for Split, you’ll know that, at some point he has to arrive. Which means that every time Kevin begins to threaten, even as he is holding a kitchen knife against one of the girls, you can rest assured that they are safe from any real harm.

Instead you spend your time waiting for ‘The Beast’ to eventually turn up, so that the brewing storm of suspense can finally break. Of course, he does arrive [although we already knew that, and frankly, after hinting to his arrival for the best part of 90-minutes it would have been a huge “screw you” for him not to], at which point you can settle into some true thrills and spills.

Except you can’t. Because almost everything thrilling either happens off camera or is, once again, far too obviously telegraphed. Which really just leaves a peculiar and somewhat disjointed finale, culminating in a final two minutes that only the Shyamalan super fans will really appreciate in any way, without properly concluding the film. Too many loose threads left untied, vagaries and an obvious attempt to see if Split could become franchised into the M. Night Shyamalan universe leave you feeling rather dissatisfied at the close. Like a mid-season episode of Lost or a writer who doesn’t finish their

Split is an enjoyable way to spend a few hours away from the house, but it won’t leave you particularly wanting any more, no matter how much it might want you to. I will admit that I have an issue with any film that draws too heavily on the idea that the human mind can change what the human body is capable of; I won’t witter on about this (check out the Tangent of the Day at the bottom of the page though), but essentially, it can’t. But I’m more than happy to put this aside and get suckered into a good story. Unfortunately, this is something which Split successfully delivers all too infrequently. The lack of any real threat throughout leaves all its attempts to shock feel forced, and its thrills contrived. With a disjointed, and largely unrewarding ending, left me feeling rather nonplussed about the entire thing. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its place, but this is with the fans of modern thrillers, or the diehard Shyamalan followers, rather than casual movie goers.
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🌟🌟🌟 3 Stars

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I loved

James McAvoy is a fantastic actor and, although his material could be considerably stronger, the range of characters he portrays is brilliant.

It is worth watching Split just to see James McAvoy dancing in the guise of a nine-year-old boy.

Pet Peeve

Not enough plot to hold the piece together, not enough action to wholly entertain, and not enough threat to ever be genuinely dramatic.

An utterly befuddling final minute or two will leave the uninitiated requiring a full debrief.

Tangent of the Day

I struggle with any story where the theory “the power of the mind” can change the human body’s physiology or performance. Why? Because it’s utter tosh. The whole notion that we only use 10% of our brains is. This whole thing came from anecdotal evidence of a chicken being beheaded poorly and surviving with [you guessed it] just 10% of its brain. By all accounts the chicken led a perfectly normal chicken life, post “execution”, save for the blindness, deafness, general lack of pretty much all of its head, and the need to be pipette fed for the rest of its existence. And the undoubted bullying it received from all its chicken mates. Although given that it was pretty much a charging ball of thoughtless fear and feathers, it probably had more important things on its tiny, shattered mind. It’s a wonder they didn’t just finish the poor sod off. Anyway, my point is that if we only used 10% of our brains, we’d be unable to conduct our basic people functions, let alone keep up with an M. Night movie.