M. Night Shyamalan has had difficult times in Hollywood. After having met a tremendous success with The 6th Sense (1999) and The Village (2004), the director faced an empty period as his films met both public and critical failures for a few years. Yet, Shyamalan is not discouraged. He came back strongly in 2016 with the surprising The Visit that repaired the public affront he faced during the 2000’s. His new film Split confirms his accomplishment and the return of the plot-twist’s genius.
Split tells the story of a mysterious man who kidnaps and confines three young women in a basement. As they try to escape, the young women realize that their abductor is “different”. The man in question is Kevin, a young disturbed man who developed a personality trouble, as 23 distinct personalities inhabit his body. His 24th personality, the most violent of all, is about to express itself and to diffuse its destructive wrath. Karen Fletcher, Kevin’s psychiatrist, has absolutely no idea of what her patient is about to do and tries to help him to tame his different personalities while aiming to prove to the scientific community that people like Kevin have potential. The film explores the relations these women have with Kevin’s personality and promises an imminent catastrophe coming up with Kevin’s 24th personality’s awakening.
Deep Characters
It is the strength of his scenarios that distinguishes Shyamalan from the other directors. Indeed, their infernal mechanic always promises surprising and brilliant endings. Split follows this rule: Shyamalan leads his spectators to discover Kevin’s different personalities with maestria. Moreover, he avoids the pitfall of creating a character that is too overwhelming compared to the other ones, because he furnishes to Casey, Kevin’s main antagonist, a complex and developed psychology substantiated by a mysterious past. The victims, who usually are annoying and stupid in this type of film, are courageous and thus allow the spectators to really feel sympathy for them. Kevin’s character is also very well developed. Shyamalan does not just present him as a crazy psychopath with multiple personalities and provides him with a past that can explain his problems. Some will say that the pasts of Kevin and Casey are maybe a little to simplistic to really justify the characters’ attitudes, yet it is really pleasant to see characters that are a little bit deeper than usual in horror movie. Moreover, their past allow the audience to identify with them. Indeed, thanks to the exploration of Kevin’s past, the director succeeds in nuancing the perception the spectator has of him by alternatively making his protagonist look moving, friendly, scary or disgusting.
A chopped writing
Just like the characters, the story is well written and plunges efficiently the spectators into anxiety. We have to admit that most of the plot twists are predictable; yet, the way Shyamalan constructs his story reminds Hitchcock’s lessons of cinema: the public knows what will happen, and he is afraid because he is aware of what he will have to face. Consequently, the film is very efficient because it fulfils its primary goal: scaring. But not only! Thanks to the character of Karen Fletcher and the manner that the characters are nuanced, the film also offers a possibility to reflect about the superhuman potential of the persons who suffers of multiple personalities disorder. Shyamalan thus succeeds to provide the spectators with both the thrill and the reflection and spares them from a stupid horror movie.
An exceptional performance
If we can underline the cleverness of the film’s scenario, it’s particularly James McAvoy’s performance that carries the film. Incarnating successively a very strict man and a playful 9-year-old kid, a scary old woman and an original young designer, McAvoy perfectly plays different characters with ease as if the titanic task was effortless. The costumes and make-up do not help the actor at all since he models his characters only through his facial expressions, his body language and his way to move and talk. His feat is incontestable: the spectators really feel like they are observing multiple characters with different mental and physical characteristics while they are actually facing the baby face of the Scottish actor. McAvoy delivers one of the most impressive performances of his career and thus enters in the category of the actors to keep track of.
An uneven rhythm
However the film suffers from some weaknesses, especially in term of rhythm. If the twenty firsts minutes and the last half-hour are really intense in terms of information and anxiety, the tempo of the movie is a bit slow in its second part. If the psychiatrist’s presence brings an interesting reflection on what is considered as “abnormal” in our society, the multiple appointments of Kevin at her office slows down the rhythm of the story. Furthermore, some can also complain about the predictable aspect of most of the plot twists. If it reinforces the public’s excitement regarding the ending, the real thriller’s fans would probably be disappointed to be able to always guess what will happen next.
A disappointing ending
Similarly, those who expect to face the twenty four personalities of Kevin may not be satisfied with what the film proposes, as the director decides to exploit only five or six of them. Nonetheless, we have to underline that this limitation allows the spectators to better enjoy the subtleties of each of the personalities they see, instead of having access to only some bribes of the character.
Additionally, the ending is not really credible and causes the spectators’ perplexity as they face an expeditious denouement. In the end, if the film is not a masterpiece, we retain McAvoy’s performance and we are still pretty satisfied of the movie that signs the come back of Shyamalan while hoping to be even more surprise by the next oeuvre of the Machiavellian director.
Split:
Réalisé par: M. Night Shyamalan
Avec: James McAvoy, Betty Buckley, Anya Taylor-Joy
