Review of Split

As said in my recent review for 'The Visit', M Night Shyamalan is one inconsistent director, with films that have fallen on both extreme sides of the film spectrum. The great films being 'The Sixth Sense' and 'Unbreakable' and the terrible films (especially) being 'The Last Airbender', 'The Happening' and 'After Earth'. It was frustrating to see a director start so promisingly and fall downhill and showing few signs of learning from his mistakes.

'Split' now replaces 'The Visit' as Shyamalan's best film since 'The Village. Neither were perfect films or were to me the returns to form often touted, both with many great things which made it more frustrating that they also had flaws big enough to stop them from living to full potential. Ranking 'Split' with the rest of the films, it's for me one of his better ones (while 'The Visit' is somewhere in the middle), not a patch on 'Unbreakable' and especially 'The Sixth Sense' but certainly better than all his previous films post-'The Village' (and that is saying volumes, due to that the least bad of his "panned" films 'Lady in the Water' was still poor).

The best thing about 'Split' is the performance of James McAvoy, who has never been creepier on film and it is a side that is just startling to watch. He has a very difficult role here, with 20+ very contrasting personalities sometimes having to change without warning quite violently and absolutely nails it in a way that one wouldn't think would expect from him. Anya Taylor Joy is more than up to his level in an enigmatic turn that combines shock, spunk and pathos. As is Betty Buckley in a sympathetic role that she does a lot with.

Production design, lighting and effects have a real eeriness that adds hugely to the atmosphere, while the cinematography is significantly better than it was in 'The Visit', having an audacious and atmospheric professionalism and not done with a technique that will alienate (and has alienated) many. The music is suitably eerie, and Shyamalan does direct more than competently in building on the scares and tension.

Apart from an ever so slightly dull beginning, much of the film up to the last half an hour is genuinely scary and suspenseful, with many twisty suspenseful turns, a sense of fun, frightening chills and contortions enough to bend the mind, more than delivering on the horror and psychological thriller elements.

However, the last half an hour does disappoint, with a revelation that while certainly not obvious (far from it, actually very much unexpected) is revealed prematurely still which does hurt the momentum and tension, horror and suspense is replaced by head-scratching confusion (in the execution that is because it did feel muddled and under-explained) and behaviours and decisions that will induce groans of frustration. Unfortunately that last personality was as far from realistic or properly scary as one could possibly get (not McAvoy's fault at all, actually he did give the needed creepiness, but what he was given which was goofy), coming over as pretty silly actually and that jarred.

Writing could have been much better, with a better and less awkward flow, the dialogue could have been less clunky and forced as well as less sloppily melodramatic. The victims also were written very lazily, constantly making stupid and illogical decisions that makes one frustrated at them rather than rooting for them.

On the whole, fairly split here. A lot of great merits but could have been better. Still one of Shyamalan's better films, just not enough to make me proclaim "he's back!" 6/10 Bethany Cox