‘Split’ Movie Review: One of M. Night Shyamalan’s Best Films

So when he started working on this movie, the idea to bring that character back and tie it into the world Unbreakable, giving fans the sequel they’ve been clamoring for for years, was foremost on his mind.

As far as I’m concerned, The Sixth Sense alone gave Shyamalan a free pass to try anything he wanted for the rest of his days. Still, Kevin’s involuntary coping mechanism is DID, thus furthering the stigma that people with DID are unsafe.

So turns out, Split exists in the same cinematic universe as Shyamalan’s 2000 superhero film, Unbreakable.

A lady says: “Hey, wasn’t there some other bad guy 15 years ago who also had a amusing name?” Anya Taylor Joy, so effective in “The Witch”, co-stars with McAvoy, and veteran Broadway star Betty Buckley is on hand as well playing Kevin’s shrink. And one of them likes to kidnap teenage girls, lock them in a basement and make them dance naked. What the girls soon notice, however, is that the man is very different every time they see him.

The personalities inside him range from a man named Dennis, another man named Barry, a woman named Patricia and a child named Hedwig. Hedwig warns them that they are being prepared for “The Beast”.

As for the customary “flipping of the script” in the end, not much payoff. “At this point in my career, I want to be part of wonderful stories, exciting characters, and also just having a good time”. In Split, he delivers thrills, chills, and a surprisingly twisted ending that changes the way the entire movie is viewed. And I eagerly anticipate the coming films in the Shyamalanaissance.

There are great movies predicated on morally dubious premises.

Yes, Kevin has dissociative identity disorder, and yes, some mental health advocates are protesting “Split” and calling for a boycott – but it’s hard to imagine any adult seeing this film and believing for a second it’s an attempt to be a scientific, seriously analytical take on DID, any more than “Psycho” or “Dressed to Kill” or “Identity” or “Fight Club”.

As for the done-goods: Shyamalan’s always been a journeyman of thrillers with economical scares, homespun characters, and textured, atmospheric settings-and Split has all that. However, I’d been too burned to call the movie a comeback for Shyamalan.

This is simply M. Night’s most evocative work since The Sixth Sense. If you can’t necessarily approve the form or the function, the relative purity of intention of poor taste is commendable. Whether using McAvoy’s cross dressing as a self-evident punchline, or treating dissociative identity disorder in ways not just inaccurate and stigmatizing, but literally impossible (**SPOILER** superpowers **END SPOILER**), Split gets cavalier with the issues mental illness, gender identity, and abuse it’s supposed to be about in a way that doesn’t feel sufficiently invested in the weight of the material.

The interesting thing about the first two-thirds of Shyamalan’s film is that, in spite of the creepy situation, it isn’t all that scary. The more we learn about Kevin’s reasons for keeping the girls, and the more we find out about his ominous 24th personality, “The Beast”, the less mysterious the film becomes.

However, after Split hit theaters, Shyamalan revealed that the concept of the Horde was originally in an early draft of Unbreakable, but eventually the writer-director decided to make the Man in Orange the villain to test Dunn.