Split is a 2016 thriller directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy and Betty Buckley.
Three girls are getting a lift with one of their dads when a man comes up and attacks him. He takes the three girls with him. They wake up in a room in a place that they don't know. The man is there. The three girls try to think of a plan to escape. The guy has 23 different personalities. The one who kidnapped them is called Kevin(James McAvoy). He is dangerous. The guy uses another personality called Barry who meets with his psychiatrist, Dr. Fletcher(Buckley). She knows all about his other personalities. She thinks that he is acting differently and she wonders what is up with him. The three girls realise that he has different personalities. He turns into a young person called Hedwig and the girls try and talk to him and get him to help them. One of the girls tries to climb out through the vent but she gets caught. She is separated from the other two.
The guy has two dominant personalities- Dennis and Patricia. Dennis goes to meet Dr. Fletcher but pretends that he is Barry. She knows that there is something up with him. He catches another girl trying to get out and she is taken away. The last girl left is called Casey(Taylor-Joy) and she has her own problems as she was abused as a child. She tries to get Hedwig to let her out and she sees that he has a radio and tries to radio for help, but he realises what she is up to and stops her. Fletcher comes around to investigate what is happening with Kevin and he catches her and locks her up before killing her as he takes on yet another personality- The Beast.
The Beast takes over and tries to kill Casey. He sees that she has scars from where she was cutting herself and he relents. He thinks that this makes her pure and he doesn't want to kill her any longer. She gets out and realises that she was underneath a zoo where Kevin was working. She talks to the cops. Kevin escapes and is happy that he is free to go on with his journey. The movie ends in a diner where news of Kevin's crimes are on the TV. A guy called David Dunn(Bruce Willis) is looking on. He is a character from Shyamalan's other movie, Unbreakable, so there is some link between the two movies.
This was an interesting film. I didn't love it or I didn't hate it. It was middle of the road for me. I liked the idea of the multiple personalities and I did think that it would be more exciting, but I found it a little slow in parts. I liked the main character of Kevin and McAvoy did a good job with the different personalities. The Casey character was forgettable, I thought. All in all, an entertaining thriller and it is one to watch if you enjoy thrillers. I will give it a 5/10.
Good review, Jigs. You are in the minority because either you love or you hate this film. I will want to see it for McAvoy's performance. Split is part of the Unbreakable universe & everything will converge in the upcoming movie, Glass.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Susan.I haven't seen Unbreakable so I saw this as a stand alone movie.I will certainly watch the next movie and hopefully I might like it more than this one.
ReplyDeleteThe part of multiple personalities was believe and he did an awesome job in this movie. I didn't realize it was part of a series and so the ending of him turning into the beast threw me for a loop and made it quite disappointing. I was more pleased with it being a simple psychological thriller. But overall it was a decent movie.
ReplyDeleteI liked it in parts, but there wasn't enough here for me. I thought that it would be better. I too didn't realise that it was part of a trilogy so I took it as a stand alone movie. I liked the idea and I did like McAvoy in the part. He played it well. There was something missing here and I just wouldn't watch it again. Thanks for commenting, Tony!
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