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Split
a M. Night Shyamalan film
Plot (Spoiler Alert)Three girls, Casey, Claire and Marcia, are kidnapped by a man who has 23 personalities living inside him. He has them held at a mysterious place. 
Blaine: M. Night Shayamalan loves taking real world things and asking the question of “Is there a plausible way to believe in the unknown?” M. Night had been fascinated with multiple personality disorder since college. He had created the character fifteen years earlier before production on "Split" and had it tucked away in a notebook of ideas for a while. During that time he would study the condition, work with some therapists and learn about the most extraordinary cases of it. The idea was growing as time went on. M. almost gave the project away for someone else to direct and he would just write and produce it, but then he thought “no I want to do this”. M. Night thought that James McAvoy was the perfect choice for the lead role in “Split” after they ran into each other at Comic-Con promoting their movies. James had no idea he was going to play twenty four characters in one film when he thought it would just be four. I am really amazed with James McAvoy’s performance and how he gave each character a different personality and gave them a voice that sounded different from the other. There’s also the facial expressions he shows is terrifying when ever one or two of his characters becomes dangerous. It’s a lot of work to keep track of all these characters you’re playing. There’s one identity within James McCoy’s character, Kevin, that is worse than the others. It’s more like a demon I would say that the other identities worship. He also eats people like a viscous animal. He decides not to kill Casey because he sees the scars on her body and can tell she is already living in a world of hell. Anya Taylor-Joy said she had to work hard to get the script. They wanted her to sign onto the project without reading the script and she was desperate to read it. Everything about the script was top secret. M. Night didn’t want to explain to the actors what the movie was about because he wanted it to be unknown of what would happen and surprised. My guess is Anya didn’t have to audition because she has been getting a lot of attention after the success of “The Witch”. Anya said she didn’t have to worry about knowing if she was doing a good job or not because it helps that M. Night explains everything of how the scene should be. Anya Taylor-Joy shows a powerful performance in this film. Her character, Casey, is not a people person and a loner. She gets herself in trouble at school so she can go to detention on purpose because she can get away from everyone else. She really can’t stand to be around people. When Casey told Marcia to participate with what they are in after their kidnapping, my guess was she has been through this before. Probably has been molested and an hour or more later when it’s showing one of her flashbacks as a five year old, it shows her uncle acting weird by taking off his clothes, acting like a dog and telling her to take off her clothes. So my guess was right. Through her performance, Anya showed that Casey is calm at first until she and her friends can find a way out. She tries to reason with one of James McCoy’s characters because she believes he can help, but he can’t and so she becomes desperate for a way out. Casey has been as patient enough as it is, but she can’t take it anymore. Watching Anya in that scene reminds me of Shelley Duvall in “The Shinning” when she discovers all the papers repeating “All work and no pay make Jack a dull boy" and her face just breaks down. Anya described Casey as really smart and patient. She really admired the character as a person of how she breaks down problems, sees things as they are and how she wants them to be. Casey lives with her uncle because the father died when she was five and so she’s living a nightmare. There was a time she could have killed him with a bullet, but she was too afraid to do it. I believe Casey has regret for not killing her uncle when she had the chance judging from the looks of it and he messed her up. There’s a deleted scene five year old Casey tells her father that she just wants it to be her and him from now on and not be around the uncle anymore. She doesn’t explain why to him, but I think he’s knows something is wrong. Dr. Karen Fletcher, played by Betty Buckley, is Kevin’s psychologist and has been treating and studying him for years. She knows he’s hiding something, but she doesn’t know what. She probably had a feeling that he is responsible for the missing girls. 
It reminded me of Phillip Garrido, the sick maniac who kidnapped Jaycee Lee Dugard and kept her in his backyard with sheds and tents. The reason why it reminds me of that is because James McAvoy kidnaps these girls and locks them away in a place where the world can't see them. Plus it was all constructed by the kidnapper and planned out. It’s not a happy ending for Casey because even though she has survived from James McCoy’s character, still she has to deal with her perverted uncle. At the end it shows a character from one of M. Night Shyamalan’s other films, “Unbreakable”, sitting at a diner. I wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel to “Split” and seeing what becomes of James McCoy’s characters sense he managed to dodge the gun shots and if Casey will ever get rid of her uncle. On April 26,2017, there was an article saying M. Night Shyamalan was going to make a sequel to “Split” and is set for 2019 release date. My rating on “Split” is five out of five stars. |