Split

Rating: 4/5

Split is an intense film with a lead that is better than its' direction.

Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy) is a reserved teenager who keeps to herself, but has been invited to a birthday party fir one of her classmates, Claire (Haley Lu Richardson). After the party, Casey is offered a ride home by Claire's dad along with Claire's friend, Marcia (Jessica Sula). While waiting in the car, the girls are terrified when a stranger gets in and sprays them with a gas the knocks them unconscious.

When they wake up, the girls discover they are being held captive in a dark room with seemingly no escape. Trying to figure a way out of their horrifying situation, Casey attempts to discern who their captor is. At first, he presents himself as a man named Dennis (James McAvoy), who is compulsively clean, but when they hear a woman's voice and scream for help, they are shocked to see that it is in fact the same man, but in different clothes and an alarmingly different personality.

M. Night Shyamalan is quite the confusing director. He started out his career being highly thought of, but his movies began to become overly complicated and even laughable at times. When he came out with the Visit in 2015, it seemed that his films might be heading in an upward direction, and then Split came on the the scene and proved that he hadn't completely lost his touch. Yes, this movie sadly has some of his unfortunate trademarks such as overly stylized shots, editing, and dialogue, but the story itself is creative and even shocking at times.

Hands down, the best part of Split is the phenomenal performance given by James McAvoy. It could not have been easy to portray so many different facets of one man, but he also had the challenge of making the audience believe that each personality he presented was actually a different character. His talent is undeniable when you are able to witness him go from a character like Dennis, that is so meticulous and frightening, to Hedwig, who is an intelligent and humorous 9-year old boy. Both characters come off as incredibly genuine and they are just two of the eight personalities that take the spotlight throughout the film.

Given the use of flashback to tell Casey's tragic story, it is clear that she is supposed to be the hero that the audience is rooting for, but her scenes were actually not my favorite ones in the movie. The scenes between McAvoy's characters and their therapist, Dr. Fletcher, played by Betty Buckley, were the ones that were the most memorable for me. The chemistry between the two actors is just part of what sold the complicated concept of Split. Their scenes together were also some of the most intense and unsettling to behold.

Overall, Split was a much better film than I had anticipated it to be. I had partially written off Shyamalan's work, so I didn't go into the movie with very high expectations. The story and performances are what make Split so impressive, even if Shyamalan's overly directed scenes give off the feeling that he is still in film school and really trying to impress his professor.