{"id":4296,"date":"2017-01-20T06:45:51","date_gmt":"2017-01-20T13:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=4296"},"modified":"2017-01-20T06:58:15","modified_gmt":"2017-01-20T13:58:15","slug":"review-split","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=4296","title":{"rendered":"Review: SPLIT"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"split1\"\"fixbutton\"M. Night Shyamalan is the guy who wrote and directed \u201cUnbreakable\u201d but also gave us \u201cThe Happening.\u201d His talents produced the Oscar nominated \u201cThe Sixth Sense\u201d and the critically lambasted \u201cThe Last Airbender.\u201d\u00a0 His early successes have been overshadowed by his later failures.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that smaller narratives better fit Shyamalan’s eye.\u00a0 And \u201cSplit\u201d is a successful more confined project that fits remarkably well into his quirky canon.<\/p>\n

When Casey, Marcia, and Claire are abducted in a shopping mall parking lot, they find themselves the prisoner of an odd sort of fellow\u2014let\u2019s call him Kevin.\u00a0 Kevin (James McAvoy) is not just one person, rather, he\u2019s has 23 separate personalities.\u00a0 And as he cares for his captives, we meet many of these singularly housed, distinct individuals.<\/p>\n

Kevin\u2019s fight to unify his identity is managed by his treating psychologist, the caring Dr. Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley).\u00a0 Dr. Fletcher frequently meets with Kevin, or whatever personality is currently in control, at her apartment.\u00a0 Her familiar relationship with her patients runs deep, but Kevin is of most interest to her.\u00a0 Fletcher desperately wants the medical community to buy into her theories that the mind can physically alter the body chemistry.\u00a0 She believes that Kevin\u2019s separate personalities are actually separate people.\u00a0 And, oh, what the mind can do!<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, back at Kevin\u2019s lair, which appears to be some sort of underground bunker, his captives fight to survive.\u00a0 Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) is the popular girl, whose take charge attitude advocates in favor of attacking Kevin and forcing their way out.\u00a0 She reminds the other girls that\u2019s she taken Karate.\u00a0 The outcast of the group, Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), on the other hand, is more cerebral and believes that using violence would only hasten their demise.\u00a0 And the overwhelmed Marcia (Jessica Sula) is understandably paralyzed in fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cSplit\u201d is equal parts frustrating and unnerving. It is also very funny.\u00a0 As Shyamalan develops his narrative, he skillfully builds the individual personalities that inhabit Kevin as well as teasing Casey\u2019s backstory.\u00a0 The magic is how tightly Shyamalan maintains tension both relying on star McAvoy, who is terrific, and by working within an often claustrophobic setting.<\/p>\n

The artful techniques Shyamalan employs borrow bits from the lens choices (wide angles used closely), the slowly unraveling mystery of both Casey and Kevin, and good old fashion horror elements in which Shyamalan full well knows must be combined with humor in order to be tolerable.\u00a0 This is a PG-13 rated film that punches well above its rating by introducing mature situations without tipping over into an overly lurid tone.\u00a0 Like most of his work, his movies often qualify as broad family entertainment\u2014fairy tales with moral messages.\u00a0 This film might be his edgiest entry and parents with children under age 13 should be cautioned.<\/p>\n

This wouldn\u2019t be a Shyamalan film unless \u201cSplit\u201d was replete with secrets.\u00a0 And without spoiling it, this time there is a very satisfying link back to his earlier successes.\u00a0 There is potential for another \u201cSplit\u201d helping as Shyamalan expands his fantastical universe.\u00a0 I\u2019m tiptoeing around certain key elements that provide lovely guilty pleasures.\u00a0 Fans of his best work will not be disappointed.<\/p>\n

If Nicolas Winding Refn has inherited much of Brian De Palma\u2019s (with a sprinkling of Michael Mann\u2019s) arguably misogynistic cinematic legacy, it is possible that with 2015\u2019s \u201cThe Visit\u201d and now \u201cSplit,\u201d Shyamalan seems to be successfully picking up the macabre wizardry of the master Alfred Hitchcock.\u00a0 One can only hope that he\u2019s capable of producing his own \u201cPsycho\u201d before another monster blockbuster failure derails his talent.\u00a0 Stay small Mr. Shyamalan, stay small\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claustrophobic \u201cSplit\u201d Confirms Shyamalan Talents Best for Small Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4296"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4302,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4296\/revisions\/4302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}