Split - Movie Review

split is directed by M night Shyamalan and this was one of the films I got to see at AFI Fest it was a ton of fun he came out introduced the film with a very heartfelt speech there was also a director and cast and crew conversation afterwards and I want to reassure anyone watching right now this is going to be 100 percent spoiler free I'm not even going to hint at anything no playful nudging I hate when critics do that we're not dumb you're safe with me this is going to be the type of review that I would want to see if I wanted to know about this movie because I hate any and all spoilers you're safe here let's talk about split and I just want to give a special thank you to the viewer who sent me this notebook and this awesome pen as well as some other things I took all my notes for this review on this thank you very much you are the best so after a moderate success with the visit Shyamalan has returned to his more traditional filmmaking roots to make a psychological thriller starring James McAvoy as a man caught in the middle of disassociative identity disorder he has 23 different personalities living inside his head and one of them has kidnapped three girls he's holding them captive somewhere for an undisclosed reason and the film cuts back and forth between these girls trying to figure out how to get out and James McAvoy visiting Betty Buckley who plays his psychologist if you guys have been following my channel for a long time you know that Sean Milan's films have had a major impact on me if I hadn't have seen some of his earlier films I wouldn't be talking to you guys right now that being said I've been a supporter of him for quite some time and save for the visit which as I said was a moderate success ever since the village I've been pretty let down I got to say having seen split it is a very good time to be a fan of M night Shyamalan he is most certainly back this is his best film since signs it is a very very good psychological thriller let's talk about what worked about split the three main performances in this movie James McAvoy Anna Taylor joy who you may recognize from the witch and Morgan and Betty Buckley I'll talk more about McAvoy in a bit let's talk about Betty Buckley first as this psychologist she plays a woman who's desperately trying to communicate with James McAvoy's character and all the various personalities that reside in his head she's trying to figure out how he works she's trying to dissect the brain of someone who's dealing with this to figure out how to cure him and how to help him and I loved her character in this film during the cast and crew discussion with her she referred to herself as the crazy old lady from The Happening so I'm not calling her that she called herself that and you might remember her from that but she really shines in this movie and brings a lot to the film and Anna Taylor joy once again is very good in this film this is another very good turn from her even though Morgan wasn't a great film she was definitely one of the best parts of it and she was fantastic in the Witch and here in split she shows herself once again to be one of the most exciting talents of her generation my favorite part of her character is that there was a lot to discover there's a lot of layers to peel back which we'll talk more about later James McAvoy I feel is one of the most underrated actors working today I've liked him in everything I've seen him in I think he's excellent as Professor X but he's great in smaller films like filth McAvoy is insanely courageous in this movie he gives himself 100% to this performance he is fully committed in this role and it pays off I think this is the best performance I've ever seen from him each personality is very distinguishable from the rest just from his vocal patterns and his facial mannerisms he's brilliant in this film I think it's his best performance if this came out this year in 2016 and not next year in 2017 I'd be saying nominate this guy right now I'm serious he's that good in this movie one of the things that Shyamalan brought up in the directors discussion after the film that really stuck with me is the difference between portraying a character that's fictional and portraying a character from non fiction like a biopic because you can look at someone who's existed in real life and then recreate their extreme more over-the-top nature and it's sort of safe with a fictional character like this you just have to be out there you have to fully give yourself over to the director in the script and McAvoy did that and he really really went for it trust me what you've seen in the trailer that's nothing he is so good in this film when Shyamalan introduced the film he mentioned that after he saw the movie it follows he immediately tried to hire the director of photography of that film for split and he got him and it shows this is one of sha Milan's best looking movies the camerawork is brilliantly contained in claustrophobic the lighting is superb this is a great looking movie unlike sha Milan's previous movies safe for the visit which featured no score at all this film is not composed by James Newton Howard is composed by West Dillon Thornton who Shyamalan mentioned that he hired after seeing the TV showed the jinx because he thought the music was so effective and what I loved about the score for this movie is that it's very subtle refreshingly so in fact sometimes you won't even notice it creeping into a scene slowly building an intense aura of dread and it really worked and ever since signs Shyamalan has tried to incorporate humor along with the thrills in his films sometimes it really works and sometimes it really doesn't in this film there's a great balance of it he wisely pokes fun at some of the more absurd elements of McEvoy's various personalities and gets us to laugh when we should laugh there's no uncomfortable sequence where we feel like should we be laughing right now or should we not laugh the film knows when to make say Hedwig the nine-year-old boy personality in McAvoy considerably funny and it knows also when to make that personality frightening because just when you think you're laughing at how cute the nine-year-old boy version of James McAvoy is all of a sudden you feel terrified by that version of him there's also a scene in this film which I will simply refer to as a scene that involves a CD player one of my favorite scenes in the movie it's incredible and if you watch very closely there's actually a mini story being told that unfolds throughout this sequence that Shyamalan brought up in the directors conversation and I can't wait to talk about that in a future spoiler video easily my favorite aspect of this movie is that Shyamalan is putting a vast amount of trust in the audience he sets up a lot of story elements here and there that will not be fully understood until we've seen the entire film we learn things about characters we learn things about backstory and the big picture becomes so much more impactful after we've seen the movie and it makes you want to watch it again through a different eye that's what some of his best films were like films that showed characters as a fact this is the character this is how they are as the film progresses you learn why they're that way and it makes it so much more impactful as we as audience members begin to discover the story on our own without just being told everything we get to peel back the various layers of these characters and learn why they feel the way they do he's strongly respecting the audience here and assuming that we're going to be on this ride with him he is asking us to be patient and I think this is a film that is going to weed out viewers who have trouble with being patient in movies because it's the type of film that requires you to take various leaps of faith with Shyamalan and if you take those leaps you're going to be rewarded I do have some flaws with split one of them in particular being the two other girls who are also in captivity with Anya Taylor joy particularly hayley lou richardson who i thought was very good in edge of seventeen here though she's very forced and sometimes over the top she seems to be on another level from anya taylor joys character and it doesn't always work sometimes that's because the film is focusing on our lead girl and sometimes haley lou Richardson's character gets drained into the background but sometimes these other two girls would just say things that came off very out of character and extremely wooden in the opening scenes the opening few scenes are a little bit clunky and sometimes the dialogue doesn't really work there's also an extensive exposition scene where Betty Buckley's character is skyping into a press conference where she's discussing identity disorder and how people can learn from it and the things that certain people can do and this entire sequence I felt could either be significantly cut or removed entirely and who knows I mean maybe by the time it's officially released it will be I don't know but I felt that sequence really did not need to be in this movie that was one of the few sequences that I felt was not trusting the audience it was more of a hey here's a whole bunch of info think about this for a while also as stated the film requires you to take some major leaps of faith and as you're watching certain things you might be thinking I don't know about this but if you just go with it you're going to be rewarded trust me because it was so well made that I was like right let's see where this goes and I was pleased now I won't be discussing the way the film concludes because as I said 100% no spoilers what I will say is that it's in my top two favorite endings to any Shyamalan film it's right up there with a sixth sense good yes for me the first active split was the weakest but each succeeding act afterwards got better and better and it built to a very intense finale that had me holding my breath split is M night Shyamalan best film since signs I am very happy to say that and I'm going to give it an A - one thing I do really want to say is that I was actually blown away by Sean Milan's opening speech to this movie it was so humble because I listened to a lot of directors introduced their films during AFI and this was the first speech in which a director genuinely thanked the audience for even being there he just seemed so grateful and happy that he was able to share his film with people he obviously is loving what he's doing and I think the past few years have really had an impact on him because that was one of the best opening speeches in fact it was the best opening speech at all of AFI so guys when this film does come out this January a couple days after that I am going to release a spoiler review and I'll be able to discuss more things in detail then up until then my lips are sealed go see this movie for sure it is worth your time it's definitely one of the better January movies ever that's for sure and if you're curious on my thoughts of every M night Shyamalan film ever since the Sixth Sense I have reviewed all of them and you're going to get a link to a playlist in just a second and you can hear my opinions on every single M night Shyamalan film ever since The Sixth Sense came out you guys are the best thank you so much as always for watching and if you like this you can click right here and get stuck mine eyes

Channel: Chris Stuckmann

Views: 1,157,864

Rating: 4.9356837 out of 5

Keywords: Split, Movie Review, Chris Stuckmann, 2017, AFI Fest, James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Jessica Sula, Haley Lu Richardson, M. Night Shyamalan, Thriller, Scary, Horror, Trailer, Teaser, Scene, Clip, Reviews, Film, Multiple Personality, Identity Disorder, Hedwig

Id: U92S5J1p3JE

Length: 10min 54sec (654 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 20 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Xerop681]

I hope M. Night Shyamalan can pull a Matthew McConaughey

[u/TheConqueror74]

I'm glad Anya Taylor-Joy is hitting these roles out of the park! She's a damn fine actress, and it's nice to see her getting and nailing these good roles.

[u/asiamexploding]

Wow. I was pretty hyped for this movie, I'm very happy to hear good things. IS HE BACK?

[u/I_AM_R3D0N]

I'm so happy to hear he's back on track. I always felt bad for the guy when his movies bombed, he always looked like he was at least trying to make interesting movies. While the execution of his past movies are questionable, you can at least admit that they were interesting concepts.

EDIT: a word

[u/djawesome361]

seems like M. Night is on track. really liked the trailer, looking forward to this.

[u/blankedboy]

The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and The Village are all good to great, and The Visit was quite a return to form, but it's really great to hear that M Night has come back to hit it out of the park again.

[u/dpenitrizzle]

What's with his stupid faces he always makes in his thumbnails? Seriously annoying and unnecessary

[u/brentendowii]

With all the reviews coming out I assumed the release would be in the next couple weeks, not January 20th.

[u/AhmadA96]

I dunno. I saw an advanced screening of this film in August and the one word to describe it was "flat". The music was a really odd choice. It just felt like scenes pieced together rather than a coherent film. And it wasn't scary, which was my main problem with it (which is what I said in the survey they gave us at the end of the movie). It never had me on edge or horrified of the villain. I was kind of disappointed but it was definitely a cool concept I suppose.