Review: Split

Three teenage girls (Anya Taylor-Joy and Haley Lu Richardson being two of them) are kidnapped and held prisoner by Kevin (James McAvoy). Kevin also goes by other names…because Kevin actually suffers from a split personality disorder. He apparently has over 20 differing personalities, some more dangerous than others. By the end of the film, another personality is set to emerge. Betty Buckley plays Kevin’s shrink who is far less effective than she seems to think in treating the man.

Although I’m one of the few who actually sorta liked “The Happening” and “After Earth”, it’s fair to say at least from a critical POV, M. Night Shyamalan (whose best film to date is still the tense “Signs”) had been in a disastrous rut for a while before rebounding quite nicely with “The Visit” (Despite its completely unnecessary ‘found footage’ structure and annoying child actor in the lead). This 2017 effort from the writer-director proved quite popular with most people it seemed as well. Unfortunately, for me it’s his worst film to date. Yes, even worse than “The Village” and “Lady in the Water”, and that takes some serious ineptitude to beat either of those disasters.

It begins well, getting off and running quickly and James McAvoy is initially very intimidating, cast rather against type. Haley Lu Richardson and particularly Anya Taylor-Joy are good, too. Unfortunately, it goes off the rails just as quickly, as McAvoy proves completely inept at convincingly playing more than one of this guy’s multiple personalities (It’s called Dissociative Identity Disorder in the film and in real life, but this film is so far from realistic I think it’s actually an insult to use the correct term). He’s embarrassing and idiotic in every other facet of the character, especially Hedwig, a lisping child. Apparently, one personality was meant to be female, but McAvoy botches it so badly I just assumed he was playing a posh, genteel, slightly effete British man (which indeed is one of the other personalities. Seemed the same personality to me). The film is boring, stops dead very quickly, and is actually rather distasteful. It’s no secret by now to suggest that the film has ties to a previous Shyamalan film (not one of his better ones, either), and I have similar problems with this one that I did with that one in that here Shyamalan does something very distasteful with a character who suffers from a mental illness. It’s dangerous territory to take such a character and want to ultimately place it where Shyamalan does. I found “The Accountant” uncomfortably waded in similar waters, but this just felt…wrong (At least in that film, the autistic character was essentially the ‘good guy’). If you’re gonna do it (and indeed the genre the film wants to move into has a history of characters who are unbalanced/crazy), do it much more vaguely. Otherwise it gets icky.

However, for me the film’s biggest problem is that I just didn’t find any of it convincing. In addition to McAvoy’s dopey performance, Taylor-Joy cottons on to the split personality thing (and a way to manipulate McAvoy in order to possibly escape) far too early to be credible. Meanwhile, why are the girls not being restrained? He’s not an especially effective kidnapper. And forget how distasteful it is for a second, I was just scratching my head at how Shyamalan tries to leap from kidnapper/psycho with a split personality disorder to what is ultimately a far more fantastical character and genre. The two are an extremely lumpy and incongruous fit (It only plays the way it does for the purpose of concealing a twist, which isn’t reason enough for me). I mean, is only one of the personalities a kidnapper? I guess so, but it’s just not very convincing to me. Also not convincing in any way is Betty Buckley’s idiotic therapist character. A truly, truly stupid and horrendously naïve and reckless woman who I just didn’t believe would exist even within the world of this fictional film.

I think Shyamalan needs to face up to the fact that he’s a much better director than writer. I think his handle on actors is a bit iffy (he lets McAvoy run riot here), but so far as creating mood, tension, visuals, and atmosphere goes, he’s quite good. However, as with this, “Lady in the Water”, and “The Village”, it’s rendered moot when the story is just shithouse. I have to say that this one doesn’t even have a solid concept, unlike several of the director’s other films. The concept here is just absurd and doesn’t begin to work. Shyamalan the screenwriter has done Shyamalan the director no favours whatsoever. However, Shyamalan the director probably should’ve cut the moronic scene where Hedwig lets Taylor-Joy watch him dance to Kanye West. That was the final straw for me, I mean was this meant to be a comedy and I just wasn’t in on the joke? That’s about the only other possibility I can think of. Believe me that when I tell you that this is Shyamalan’s worst film, I’m fully aware he has previously given us a film about menacing trees.

This is a completely unconvincing, stupid, and slightly distasteful load of hogwash from a director who needs to stop hiring himself as an actor, and needs to read other people’s scripts. An eye-rolling catastrophe, despite being apparently well-liked by many. This I just didn’t take to at all, Taylor-Joy is good but the film is pathetic and no more convincing than Brian De Palma’s idiotic “Raising Cain”.

Rating: D-