Split is definitely my favorite M. Night Shyamalan piece in years. While this film did not have his trademark twist at the end, there was a clever cameo used that tied in to one of Shyamalan's earlier films. This film began a shared universe of those two works, but that was not even the best part of this movie. The greatest part was the performance by the ever-talented James McAvoy. His performance was absolutely astounding throughout the entire film, and most definitely award-worthy. There are many other aspects that I found fantastic, but I will be focusing on McAvoy, as he stole the show and gave one of the best performances in a thriller in a long time.
James McAvoy is one of the greatest young actors out in Hollywood today, and this film definitely cements that. In this movie, McAvoy plays Kevin, a secluded criminal with dissociative identity disorder. This film revolves around his four main personalities: the extroverted Barry, the intimidating Dennis, the calming Patricia, and the ever-lovable Hedwig. We don't see any more of his personalities until later in the film, but these four were the main roles, and played so excellently as well. These different personas were portrayed amazingly and each had their own distinct charisma. Even if their clothes did not give it away, the audience could tell which persona had taken over solely based on McAvoy's acting. This is truly the mark of a great actor, because he embodied these different roles so well, all in the course of one movie. While editing is a huge part of this as well, assisting McAvoy in separating the roles, it is still extremely impressive to see this actor dedicate himself to the roles this much. In fact, in one of the ending scenes, we see Kevin struggling to switch between his pure and more evil personas in a matter of seconds, and it was the most fascinating scene of the entire film. This entire film was so captivating, and McAvoy's performance just added to that edge-of-the-seat feeling.
The tone throughout this film was very intense and personally made me sweat. That is a good sign for a thriller, though, and it worked so well. The silence and lack of soundtrack in this movie added to the tone, giving more intensity and focus on the characters. The other characters in this film were portrayed great as well, most notably Anya Taylor-Joy as Casey. Casey was the only surviving victim of Kevin's kidnapping spree, and her "sweet-but-innocent" aura was misleading, in a good way. Casey's backstory was included very smoothly throughout the film, and this is due to the great writing. The story of how Casey was raped by her uncle and forced to live with him added to her personality and gave good motivation to her wanting to escape Kevin's secluded basement of the zoo. And the shotgun motif was an excellent touch, may I add.
The biggest "a-ha!" moment of this film was undoubtedly the final scene, where Bruce Willis is seen in a cafe, and die-hard Shyamalan fans realize the connection to his 2000 film Unbreakable. This shared universe trend, obviously popular in today's culture, seems to be an overused trope at this point, so I dearly hope that it is not misused. I trust Shyamalan though, as he is always careful with his films. The only part that I feel could have been improved was the inclusion of the personas. While we saw a quick glimpse of a few more of Kevin's identities on the computer, I would have liked to seen even more. I understand that McAvoy might have only had time to truly master a select few, which he did very well, but I still would have enjoyed experiencing more of them, as there were 24 in total. Just a personal preference I suppose but I think they could have done a bonus feature on the disc, which would have been neat.
Split is one of the best thrillers I have seen in years, and kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time, while continuously drawing me in with new aspects. James McAvoy deserves endless praise for his many roles, and this film proves to be one of Shyamalan's greatest.
My Rating: ★★★★½
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