Writer & Director / M. Night Shyamalan (THE VISIT, UNBREAKABLE, THE SIXTH SENSE)
Stars / James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula and Betty Buckley

The 2015 release of writer/director M. Night Shyamalan’s last film, THE VISIT, wasn’t just a thoroughly enjoyable meshing of comedy and suspense horror that put the filmmaker back on the public radar, it led to indications that THE VISIT could become a more permanent transition in the filmmakers genre movie making. SPLIT baptises that notion, and is Shyamalan’s most psychologically driven and deranged yet.

Yes, it is time to accept that the work we associate the Shyamalan name to, has well and truly evolved. Love or loathe this new path he has taken, you cannot deny his efforts and endeavour to create something original and reinvent himself.

This unclassifiable, genre-mashing (multiple) mood piece is about a man who has 23 distinct personalities, played marvellously by McAvoy, in a demanding role. When one of those identities kidnaps three beautiful young women, Casey (A terrific Anya Taylor-Joy, recently seen in THE WITCH and MORGAN), Claire (THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN star, Haley Lu Richardson), and Marcia (Sula), the girls must work together to find one of those identities willing to help them escape, before the 24th is unleashed.

This ambitiously written, yet unevenly directed psychological thriller/horror sure as heck entertains, has its thrills, occasionally chills and is often prone to triggering laughter from most uncomfortable places in which laughter is not usually derived. 

Shyamalan’s lengthiest and personally most challenging film to date even adds extra dimensions of psychology to its themes by way of its discourse and development into the limitless potential the human mind is capable of. Admittedly, it may very well be this factor alone that splits the difference in opinion of SPLIT. 

Greatness is certainly within reach in SPLIT, however it is often stalled when integrating flashback scenarios of a certain characters past and when crossing over to Kevin’s (McAvoy) therapy sessions with Dr. Fletcher (Buckley). These sequences do belong, no doubt about that, but there is too many of them and they offset the tension brewing within the key plot. 

Regardless of whether it is a hit or a miss for you, one guarantee can be made – SPLIT won’t be slipping your mind any time soon! 

3 stars 

Viewer Discretion/ M (mature themes, violence and coarse language. There is also disturbing thematic content and behaviour)

Trailer / SPLIT

Moviedoc thanks Universal Pictures and Village Cinemas Jam Factory for the screening invite to this film.

Review by Moviedoc / “LIKE” on Facebook – Moviedoc 

©