"Split" English film review - McAvoy enthralls with a career-best performance, Anya Taylor-Joy does not miss a beat...
I took an OLA shared-ride to work last Monday and my new friend and cab-mate Mahesh told me about this cool new PVR initiative called Vkaao, a ‘movie screening on-demand’ service where a movie is screened if it gets like 23 or 28 (check) votes from users. This is awesome, I think, especially since we can opt for excellent foreign language films that do not have an India release. Or if we have missed a great movie - old or new - and want to still watch it on the big-screen. And what more, PVR would screen it at the normal ticket price! Mahesh had mentioned that Split had such a screening today. After that, I totally forgot about it as I got busy with the work-week.
Next, on Friday morning, when I had checked the BookMyShow (BMS) website for the new releases, Split was mentioned. But there was just one show of this new directorial venture of Manoj Night Shyamalan, at PVR Vaishnavi Sapphire, on Saturday morning at 9. I thought I'd book the tickets later in the evening, when I'm back home from work, anticipating more screens to be added later on BMS, since it was very early, then, and a usual occurrence in that website... Only to see that it was not listed anymore! So, I assumed that the show must have been a sell-out.
I remembered that conversation from earlier in the week and pinged Mahesh to check if he had an extra ticket, although it was 1'o clock past Friday midnight. He promptly responded asking me to check the PVRCinemas website and I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw that tickets were still available.
Split is a carceral psychological thriller, with out-of-the-world performances from the two lead-actors.
Kevin Wendell Crumb suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (commonly known as multiple personality disorder) and visits his psychologist regularly. Only that his visits have lately turned urgent and frequent, following a perpetration. He kidnaps three girls that he wants to prepare for The Beast, one of his 24 split personalities! The film explores the strong possibility of distinctive physical attributes for each personality, too, within the same body in such an illness. And James McAvoy, an ever-reliable performer, gives a heart-wrenching performance in a role that may actors would possibly die for.
Shyamalan conceived the script years ago and since we have seen multiple movies on split personalities, in recent times - and there's not much new in terms of the offering; but what normally sets such films stand apart, besides the story - which is not new, in this case - is a superlative performance from the lead actors. And McAvoy does just that with a sublime performance, supported wonderfully well by Anya Taylor-Joy and Betty Buckley. Watch how Taylor-Joy tears wonderfully, and her body language and facial expressions. Absolutely mind-blowing...! Buckley's convincing performance as the shrink is also very good.
The director is back with elan, and also touches upon the subject of child-abuse and it's post-traumas, here. The man knows how to tell a story, for sure. It's also been number one in the US box office for three straight weeks, a feat Shyamalan last experienced in The Sixth Sense, back in 1999. That must have been a long wait, indeed!
The length of the film, at almost two hours, could have been crisper by about fifteen minutes.
My verdict: 3.5 out of 5, with a star entirely for McAvoy and Taylor-Joy, the 20-year old wonder. Watch out for her in the years to come. The film, made on a budget of 9 million USD, has already grossed almost a 150 million USD worldwide! It released in the US three weeks ago, and may open to the public in India on the 24th of this month.
Next, on Friday morning, when I had checked the BookMyShow (BMS) website for the new releases, Split was mentioned. But there was just one show of this new directorial venture of Manoj Night Shyamalan, at PVR Vaishnavi Sapphire, on Saturday morning at 9. I thought I'd book the tickets later in the evening, when I'm back home from work, anticipating more screens to be added later on BMS, since it was very early, then, and a usual occurrence in that website... Only to see that it was not listed anymore! So, I assumed that the show must have been a sell-out.
I remembered that conversation from earlier in the week and pinged Mahesh to check if he had an extra ticket, although it was 1'o clock past Friday midnight. He promptly responded asking me to check the PVRCinemas website and I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw that tickets were still available.
Split is a carceral psychological thriller, with out-of-the-world performances from the two lead-actors.
Kevin Wendell Crumb suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (commonly known as multiple personality disorder) and visits his psychologist regularly. Only that his visits have lately turned urgent and frequent, following a perpetration. He kidnaps three girls that he wants to prepare for The Beast, one of his 24 split personalities! The film explores the strong possibility of distinctive physical attributes for each personality, too, within the same body in such an illness. And James McAvoy, an ever-reliable performer, gives a heart-wrenching performance in a role that may actors would possibly die for.
Shyamalan conceived the script years ago and since we have seen multiple movies on split personalities, in recent times - and there's not much new in terms of the offering; but what normally sets such films stand apart, besides the story - which is not new, in this case - is a superlative performance from the lead actors. And McAvoy does just that with a sublime performance, supported wonderfully well by Anya Taylor-Joy and Betty Buckley. Watch how Taylor-Joy tears wonderfully, and her body language and facial expressions. Absolutely mind-blowing...! Buckley's convincing performance as the shrink is also very good.
The director is back with elan, and also touches upon the subject of child-abuse and it's post-traumas, here. The man knows how to tell a story, for sure. It's also been number one in the US box office for three straight weeks, a feat Shyamalan last experienced in The Sixth Sense, back in 1999. That must have been a long wait, indeed!
The length of the film, at almost two hours, could have been crisper by about fifteen minutes.
My verdict: 3.5 out of 5, with a star entirely for McAvoy and Taylor-Joy, the 20-year old wonder. Watch out for her in the years to come. The film, made on a budget of 9 million USD, has already grossed almost a 150 million USD worldwide! It released in the US three weeks ago, and may open to the public in India on the 24th of this month.
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