Split Review

M. Night Shyamalan is a director whose reputation often precedes him. Films like The Village and The Sixth Sense have made him renowned for a tendency towards ‘sudden twists’. This has not always acted entirely in his favour, and his style has occasionally lead critics to discredit him as gimmicky or the most supposedly unexpected of the endings to his films as obvious. What his films do undeniably well, however, is get under your skin, and Split is no exception to that.

After one or two let downs from Shyamalan, Split sees him back on form. James McAvoy puts in an astounding performance as all of the personalities of Kevin, a man suffering from dissociative identity disorder who has kidnapped three teenage girls for the purpose of some unknown ritual, and the girls must then attempt to understand and manipulate a portion of the 23 personalities who inhabit Kevin’s body. McAvoy pulls off sudden, startling switches in character believably and clearly has the acting prowess to avoid an overacting which could seriously hinder the delicacy necessary to a film such as this. The action moves at a steady, unnerving pace and – considering inevitable expectations of Shyamalan’s films – it’s necessary to point out the plot doesn’t revolve around a shocking twist, which is in many ways extremely refreshing and the movement of the storyline gives the feeling you are in safe hands.

The only disappointing element of the film is the rather standard struggle of the girls attempting to escape their captor. One of the girls, Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), redeems the trio, but simultaneously accentuates how hopelessly vanilla the other two stock teenage girl characters are. Their lack of development beyond this is disappointing, but does not taint the rest of the film with banality. Overall, it’s a superb display of what the last few Shyamalan films have lacked, and is made by one or two of the central performances.