Mister Minutes' Cinema Circus

It's kind of hard for me to talk about Split without talking about its Big Twist Ending first. Of course, pretty much everyone knows the twist at this point, but still, if you haven't seen it and want to, maybe go find something else to read.

So, as pretty much everyone knows by now, Split's big twist is that it's a secret sequel to M. Night's 2000 film, Unbreakable (which I reviewed here). I feel a need to get that out of the way first, not because I like spoiling things, but because I really had no interest in Split until I realized it was connected to Unbreakable. When I saw the first trailer in 2016, it looked good, pretty scary, but the realization that it was a Shyamalan movie turned me off immediately. I still felt burned from how he butchered The Last Airbender, and I'd heard nothing but bad things about After Earth. The Visit is widely regarded as a comeback movie for M. Night, but that still didn't instill me with any confidence for Split. Years later, upon seeing promos for Glass, I was immediately intrigued by the idea that, not only had Shyamalan made a sequel, but a sequel to a cult movie from 20 years ago that was barely remembered by the general public? I love seeing when a person is passionate about something, and it was clear to me that he must have been really passionate about his little superhero origin story in order to make a sequel -- and, despite his lackluster track record in the early 2000s, I can at least have faith that M. Night doesn't make a movie unless he thinks it's a really good idea. So, I was immediately interested in the prospect of this shared universe, created and fleshed out by one passionate person. So, naturally, I had to see Split.

I'll admit I felt a little... strangely guilty, at having originally turned up my nose at Split, only to change my mind upon realizing its connection to a movie I already liked. I felt like I hadn't really given it a fair chance when it came out.
I don't have a clever or poignant off-ramp from this anecdote, so I'll just get into talking about the movie.

It goes without saying that James McAvoy is an incredible actor. His abilities were truly put to the test here, having to portray eight different personalities using only his physicality and vocal work. There's a scene in the therapist's office where we see him change, as Dennis pretending to be Barry, and now dropping the act: first an eyebrow arches, gets sharper; he sits up straight as a rail and begins to glower at Dr. Fletcher. It's a chilling moment executed flawlessly through really strong, distinct physicality. Every one of the alters is so uniquely different, you can tell right away who you're looking at when they come forward, before they've even said anything.

Anya Taylor-Joy is great as Casey, one of the girls that Dennis has kidnapped for the Beast. She does a good job portraying a very hurt, antisocial girl who's so far removed from her peers that she can't even bring herself to join her fellow captors to fight back, and spends the whole movie acting for herself. The subplot about her uncle's horrific abuse is sickening, and the movie took it farther than I expected it to; nothing graphic is shown on screen, but it tiptoes so close and lets your mind fill in the blanks, which makes it all the more horrible. You really understand why Casey is so withdrawn and quiet, and it's a very uncomfortable thing that her years of abuse and trauma are ultimately what save her from the Beast. I have to applaud M. Night for going so dark with that aspect, and for doing something so uncomfortable. That's a kind of fearlessness that I respect. That being said, as good of a character as Casey is, I wish the other girls had been similarly fleshed out. I don't need full backstories for Claire and Marcia, but outside of Claire taking a leadership position and being proactive about their escape, I don't really know who they are. Which ultimately doesn't matter much because they both get eaten, but still; horror movie victims never feel very fleshed out, which ultimately makes their deaths feel kind of meaningless. If I don't know Marcia and Claire, why should I feel bad that they died? I know they're not real, so the movie has to make them feel real to me, and most horror movies don't really do that -- but anyway, I'm getting sidetracked.

I have to mention the cinematography, by Mike Gioulakis, who previously shot It Follows. As Split takes place mostly in the underground tunnels in which Kevin lives, the cinematography is wonderfully claustrophobic, aided by the completely enclosed, windowless rooms the characters inhabit. There are shots where Kevin takes up most of the shot, a couple of sequences of the girls running down a cramped access corridor boxed in by pipes and valves, with the shots only opening up for scenes above ground, such as Dr. Fletcher's office and the museum. Even the opening scene at Claire's birthday is cramped, with her father's shoulder taking up most of the shot and obscuring Casey's face. There are also a few subtle nods to Eduardo Serra's masterful work on Unbreakable, most notably in a few tracking shots that represent a character's walking POV, until said character moves into frame. There's nothing quite as brilliant as Serra's use of glass and reflections as a visual motif for Elijah Price, but Gioulakis is clearly a skilled cinematographer, and I'm glad he's continued to get work on films like Us and Shyamalan's own Glass.

Of course, the nods to its predecessor film don't stop there. At one point, Claire runs into a water pump room, with pumps clearly marked with 'CHLORINE' labels. I'm sure this is just a room that exists under the Philadelphia Zoo, but I also think Shyamalan is exact enough that this is a nod to David Dunn's weakness to water and near-drowning in a pool in the first film. There are also several allusions to Kevin having "powers", and that his mental disorder is a window into something supernatural. The biggest reference, of course, comes at the very end; what would be an after-credits stinger in a Marvel movie comes just after Casey has been rescued. The very distinct late-90's drum machine starts up, heralding the original Unbreakable soundtrack as a camera pushes in through a diner, and the TV news discusses the kidnapping of the three girls. A waitress, leaning conspicuously against the counter, says "THIS IS LIKE THAT GUY IN THE WHEELCHAIR THEY PUT AWAY 15 YEARS AGO. THEY GAVE HIM A FUNNY NAME TOO, WHAT WAS IT AGAIN?" in an extremely natural and not at all stupid way. She then moves out of the way right as Bruce Willis tries to answer her question with a grizzled and tired "Mr. Glass" and a big name tag that says "DUNN" on his blue collar work shirt. In execution, it's a really clumsy, stupid moment that feels really robotic and out of place... buuuut it was hype as fuck and got me super excited for Glass. I'm a sucker for dumb hype moments even if they're bad; one of the stupidest scenes in the already stupid Godzilla: King of The Monsters is when Godzilla comes back to life and rises up out of the ocean (how can he stand up in the ocean?) while the original Gojira theme plays. It's braindead as fuck and I cheered.

Of course, I do have to mention the elephant in the room: the movie was very much ill received by the mental health community and those who live with D.I.D. (Dissociative Identity Disorder, which is never fully named in the film beyond its acronym), and with good reason. The fact is, Split is a good thriller movie with a good, scary villain. It is also a fact that portraying someone with D.I.D. as a violent, cannibalistic, supernatural entity is extremely harmful to those who actually live with the condition. It's a very simplistic and cartoonish way of looking at a real mental disorder, especially so when Dr. Fletcher, lecturing about D.I.D., says "Is this where our sense of the supernatural comes from?" Holy shit, dude. Of all the truly banal, stupid things she says in the movie, that is the most fairy tale bullshit I've ever heard used to describe a mental health condition. People with D.I.D. are not tapping into some paranormal power that gives them superhuman abilities because one of their personalities wills it so. That's a dangerous way to think about mental health conditions, and I can 1000% understand why people would be upset by its portrayal here. I feel a little bad because I really enjoyed the movie, and I thought the character of Kevin and his personalities was a really cool concept that was executed in an exciting way, and it's hard for me to reconcile that with the fact that this absolutely is a harmful representation of people with this disorder. I don't have an answer, or a way to reconcile those two thoughts; I'm just a clown on the internet watching movies.

All in all, I liked Split, and I do recommend it, with the caveats that you should watch Unbreakable first, and that this movie should in no way be taken as reality. D.I.D. is a very real and serious condition, but the vast, vast majority of those with it are not violent or dangerous. People with D.I.D. don't kidnap girls and put bad plastic gore effects on their stomachs, they live their lives (...plural...) just like anyone else. So watch this movie as pure complete fantasy, and be kind to those living with mental conditions that you don't have.