Review of Split (2017) by Spangle — 29 Jan 2017

From the very first frame of this film, I felt inescapable dread. It became clear that things would only escalate, especially after Split quickly got through the setup in the trailer. With Kevin (James McAvoy) kidnapping the girls practically immediately into the film, Split allows itself to quickly get into the unknown. It got past the setup and now drops three young girls - Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), Claire (Haley Lu Richardson), and Marcia (Jessica Sula) - into the lion's den and leave them no way of escaping. From there, M. Night Shyamalan is free to explore the possibilities of this unknown building and the incredible mind of Kevin, a man trapped inside his own body with 23 distinct personalities. Frequent warnings about "The Beast" only add to the tension and the end result is a film that leaves your stomach churning for nearly two hours.

That said, while the thrills and horror are top-notch and akin to films such as The Silence of the Lambs in that is not a film about viscera, but rather an exploration of the mind of a mentally ill man, Split is not explicitly a horror film. It is one that finds horror in the situation of the girls, but instead of focusing on them, the star here is Kevin's mind. The true thrill and insanity of Split is derived from his mind, rather than the situation the girls find themselves in. The latter is often quite derivative and predictable, with obvious implications regarding a gun and Casey learning to hunt proving far too overt to actually become effective. The plot itself is relatively straight forward as these girls simply are trying to get out. Once the film really hones in on Casey and her back story, it becomes equally clear that it will come down to a face-off between her and "The Beast" to escape. Thus, the more straight out thriller/horror elements really do not provide much to chew on. It feels merely superfluous to the real show: Kevin.

With 23 personalities trapped inside his mind, Kevin is a man with a lot of walls up. One personality, Dennis, is brutally evil and has OCD. He is also responsible for kidnapping the girls to sacrifice to "The Beast". Others make appearances throughout the film and some are entirely stable, some are diabetic, some are women, and some are even young children. He is a man that is thoroughly fractured and, unfortunately, the bad personalities are gained the "light" and preventing Kevin himself and the more adjusted personalities from being active. It is in this playground of personalities that Shyamalan truly as fun, as he creates great mystery as to who is actually in control of Kevin's body and what they may be capable of doing. While often quite scary, Shyamalan saves it at the end from being a film that demonizes the mentally ill. Upon saying Kevin's real name, Casey gets to interact with the real Kevin. Trapped in September 2014 within his own body, Kevin begs her to kill him before he loses control again. Tragic, heart wrenching, and entirely moving, this sequence shows that while Shyamalan finds fear in the illness suffered by the mentally ill, he does not demonize the mentally ill themselves. Rather, he paints Kevin as a sympathetic figure who desperately needs help and is trapped just like the girls kidnapped by Dennis.

The sympathetic portrayal continues in the explanation of Kevin's past. These personalities were created by his mind to help cope with the mental and physical abuse undertaken by Kevin's mother. In one terrifying scene, we get a point of view shot of Kevin hiding under the bed as his screaming and irate mother calls out his full name and closes in with a weapon to harm him. However, just as the calm and docile personalities are byproducts of Kevin's coping, the evil ones - Dennis, Patricia, and "the beast" - are all byproducts as well. Recognizing weakness, the mind has created these darker personalities out of pain. "The Beast", for example, originates from a train because his father left on a train and never returned. As such, all 23 personalities are coping mechanisms and methods by which the mind tries to protect Kevin from further mental strain and hardship. It is via this reveal that Split takes on a very depressing tone as though we see the damage he can cause when "fully evolved", it comes from a place of pain and agony. Though he must be stopped, it is hard not to shed a tear over the agony he still endures while trapped inside his own body and buried beneath coping mechanisms.

However, this portrayal does explain his approach to the girls. Claire and Marcia are the true targets. Having stalked them for weeks, he had decided upon them because they were impure and perfect for the Beast to consume. They were impure because they had never suffered pain. In his messed up post-traumatic state, Kevin's personalities have reasoned that to reach purity, one must suffer. Thus, he does not kill Casey since she bears the scars of either self-harm or her Uncle raping her to this very day.