Review of Glass (2019) by Bodops — 19 Jan 2019

'Glass' review (no spoilers):

This doesn't do the previous films justice. From my perspective, 'Unbreakable' was a gem. M Night Shyamalan's uncanny ability to handle trauma and melancholy made it unique. The ‘hero’ aspect was secondary to'Glass' review (no spoilers):

This doesn't do the previous films justice.

From my perspective, 'Unbreakable' was a gem.

M Night Shyamalan's uncanny ability to handle trauma and melancholy made it unique. The ‘hero’ aspect was secondary to the exploration of fragile family relationships. You cared about David because of his personal grief, his hopes of patching things up with his wife and son, and his growing sense of fear and bewilderment.

With 'Split', you came for James McAvoy's head-spinning performance, but you stayed for Anna Taylor-Joy's compelling and heart-breaking backstory (and hopefully the epic end-credits reveal too). Shyamalan has many detractors - but when he's on form, he conjures character depth effortlessly.

You lie in wait of the gut-punch monochrome reveals, but his artful exploration of deep (and often, uncomfortable) emotions is what carries his stories through.

‘Glass’ does, at times, carry weight. In fact, the first 30 minutes are brilliant – and even when it falls away after that, there *are* parts that drag you back into the slipstream of the intended experience.

However, those false dawns emphasise how bafflingly convoluted and hollow the ending is – and thus, how much of a disservice it does to the story as a whole.

After the credits rolled, the first words that came to mind were ‘massive production problems’.

Lo and behold, the day after the Premiere, Samuel L Jackson admitted:

“There was a different ending when we first started this that kind of needed to be changed because of the way society is and what's going on in the world and what it would have looked like.”.

Cancel culture 1. Artistic vision 0.

One of the most confusing and disappointing experiences I’ve ever had in a cinema. And that includes the time I caught my foot in a drinks-holder and accidentally threw a super-size sprite in a child’s face.