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Review: M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Split’ Has Personality. O.K., Personalities. Lots.

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By A.O. Scott

• Jan. 19, 2017

At once solemn and preposterous, sinister and sentimental, efficient and overwrought, “Split” represents something of a return to form for its writer and director, M. Night Shyamalan. Or maybe I should say a return to formula. The movie, shot in and around Philadelphia, Mr. Shyamalan’s hometown, proceeds nimbly and with suave misdirection toward a pair of rug-pulling final twists that an attentive viewer will probably be able to anticipate. It’s not exactly a Choose Your Own Adventure, but you can opt either for the pleasure of surprise at the end or for the satisfaction of working out the puzzle as you go along.

Thanks to “ The Sixth Sense ” and “ Unbreakable ” back around the turn of the century, Mr. Shyamalan stands as a pioneer of spoiler-centric cinema. Like those movies, and like his later, lesser entertainments (“The Village”; “The Happening”), “Split” is all plot, an ingenious (and also ridiculous) conceit spun into an elegant ribbon of suspense. The less said about that plot, therefore, the better.

Movie Review: ‘Split’

The times critic a. o. scott reviews “split.”.

In “Split,” three teenage girls are kidnapped by a man with multiple personality disorder. In his review A.O. Scott writes: At once solemn and preposterous, sinister and sentimental, efficient and overwrought, “Split” represents something of a return to form for its writer and director, M. Night Shyamalan. The movie proceeds nimbly and with suave misdirection toward a pair of rug-pulling final twists that an attentive viewer will probably be able to anticipate. The film is lurid and ludicrous, and sometimes more than a little icky in its prurient, maudlin interest in the abuse of children. It’s also absorbing and sometimes slyly funny.

What I can safely divulge is that three teenage girls are kidnapped after a birthday party by a close-cropped guy named Dennis in a buttoned-up shirt. He is obsessed with cleanliness, and he sounds weirdly like John Turturro for a guy supposedly from Philly. In fact, Dennis is played by the soft-eyed, shape-shifting British actor James McAvoy, as are the other 23 personalities residing in the body of a guy who shares the surname of a famous (and famously odd) Philadelphia-born artist .

These “alters” — a word familiar to fans of the Showtime series “United States of Tara” and other pop-cultural treatments of a controversial and often poorly understood psychological disorder — are a diverse bunch. Some are male, some female, at least one is a child (named Hedwig) and another (named Barry) is a gay stereotype. What they want with their captives is not immediately clear. What Mr. Shyamalan wants is to strip them down to their underwear and to explore, exploit and occasionally subvert the basic tropes of the female-victim psycho-slasher movie.

One of the young women — a gothy, spooky misfit named Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) — is singled out for special attention from the camera (though not, at least initially, from Dennis and his colleagues). Her fellow abductees, Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) and Marcia (Jessica Sula), alternate between panic and defiance, but Casey counsels patience and watchfulness. Flashbacks to a hunting trip she took as a 5-year-old (Izzie Leigh Coffey) in the company of her father (Sebastian Arcelus) and uncle (Brad William Henke) seem to explain the source of her survival skills, though it turns out that those memories have another, darker meaning as well.

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Split Review

20 Jan 2017

117 minutes

Split (2017)

Around the turn of the century, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan essentially created his own genre with The Sixth Sense , Unbreakable and Signs : suspenseful character studies with a paranormal vibe, a reverse spoof approach whereby subjects (ghosts, superheroes, alien invaders) usually played tongue-in-cheek are presented in high seriousness, through intense, anguished central performances from established male movie stars, and the sort of last-reel twists associated with The Twilight Zone (all Shyamalan’s other traits can be found in Rod Serling, as it happens). One sign of Shyamalan’s success is that other people started making M. Night Shyamalan-type movies: Joel Schumacher with The Number 23 , Alex Proyas with Knowing .

Perhaps as a response to becoming an imitable brand and perhaps down to the muted (and sometimes peculiarly hostile) response to The Village , Lady In The Water and The Happening (all interesting films), Shyamalan moved away from his personal cinema to take shots at fantasy ( The Last Airbender ), sci-fi ( After Earth ) and found-footage shocker ( The Visit ). With Split , he returns to ‘Night Classic’ mode. We’re back in sombre Philadelphia where soft-spoken, well-heeled folks go quietly mad and a psycho thriller plot evolves into something weirder on the boiling-a-frog principle of slowly adding bizarre, freakish elements to an extreme case study. This time, perhaps frustrated by the attention paid to his most easily parodied habit, Shyamalan holds off on a twist in favour of a measured development of a far-out premise, though an intensely fan- satisfying development pops up near the end.

All actors want to play Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and McAvoy seizes with obvious relish on the role of one man with 23 personalities due to be usurped by a 24th who is more animal than man. Head finely stubbled as his Professor X cut grows out, he uses a few props (glasses, a woolly hat) but mostly conveys Kevin’s alters — who range from a gay fashion designer through an OCD caretaker and a sinister British matriarch to a tittering child — with changes of expression and voice. It’s a show-off tour de force, and McAvoy is dazzling throughout — funny, creepy, threatening, pathetic and monstrous by turns. Note especially set-pieces like his perfectly uncoordinated demonstration of what a nine-year-old might think are radical dance moves, and the unsettling moments where one of Kevin’s more controlled, sinister personalities impersonates a more open, appealing one to reassure his analyst (Betty Buckley) that things aren’t going south in his skull.

As often with Shyamalan, the actual plot is less important than the character business. Even Kevin loses interest in two of his young captives, who get shoved into storerooms as misfit Casey (Taylor-Joy) emerges as the heroine, realising she’s most likely to survive by engaging with her captor than by crawling through ventilation ducts or relying on teen-princess karate lessons. That Casey’s life experience has prepared her for the ordeal is established in tactful, unsettling micro-flashbacks which feature standout work from Izzie Coffey, whose wide eyes perfectly match Taylor-Joy’s. After The Witch and Morgan , Taylor-Joy is shaping up as the weird chick of her generation — but she has to work as hard as her character to find her screen-space here when her co-star is busily upstaging himself, let alone her.

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'Split': Review

By Tim Grierson, Senior US Critic 2016-11-17T11:08:00+00:00

Dir/scr: M. Night Shyamalan. US. 2016. 120mins

An abduction thriller in which the danger emanates from others but the true terror is within, Split is a highly effective, nerve-shredding horror movie that makes the most of its claustrophobic setting, familiar setup and psychological gimmicks. James McAvoy is an arresting menace as a man suffering from 23 — or is it 24? — distinct personalities, and the performance is both a feast of unsettling intensity and good-old-fashioned hammy theatrics.

Shyamalan and his cast keep finding clever ways to sidestep familiarity to give their film its own personality

Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan’s low-budget treat savours its midnight-movie creepiness, and yet its gripping finale turns out to be more emotional than one might expect. Split will open in the US on January 20 and while the Shyamalan name has lost its lustre in recent years — although his 2015 found-footage horror movie The Visit was a quiet success, grossing almost $100 million worldwide on a reported $5 million budget - McAvoy and rising star Anya Taylor-Joy will help boost Split’ s visibility, as will strong reviews.

Taylor-Joy plays Casey, a teenaged loner who is kidnapped after a classmate’s birthday party, alongside the more popular Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) and Marcia (Jessica Sula). The man who nabs them (McAvoy) at first appears to be a tidy, fussy sociopath, instructing them not to leave the locked room where he’s holding them captive. But he returns several times, and in each instance he exhibits a different personality — whether it’s as an elegant woman or a mischievous little boy.

Thanks to separate scenes in which he meets with his counsellor, Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley), we learn that Kevin has 23 distinct personalities, all warring inside him. But what’s even more concerning is that a new personality, whom he refers to ominously as The Beast, is fighting to emerge.

Shyamalan establishes an air of dread from the opening abduction, and Split initially plays out like a typical beautiful-young-women-in-danger kidnapping thriller. (Rest assured, each of our three female protagonists will be in different states of undress or flashing ample cleavage at key moments.)

The film’s B-movie aesthetic is enhanced further by McAvoy’s confidently showy performance, which feels like an homage to Psycho ’s Anthony Perkins and other actors who have played imbalanced bogeymen. Mental-health advocates may object to Split ’s somewhat cavalier attitude toward Kevin’s condition, which mostly serves as a means to make the character seem creepy and give McAvoy an opportunity to bounce around between colourful personalities. But with that said, the actor brings genuine pathos to the portrayal, expressing a vulnerability within Kevin that, if anything, only makes this unpredictable antagonist more frightening and troubling.

Daringly, Shyamalan tries to draw a parallel between Kevin and Casey, who soon becomes the film’s central focus. Through judicious flashbacks, Split hints at incidents from the teenager’s early childhood that have left a permanent mark on her. In her own way, Casey is wrestling with demons as profound as Kevin’s, and Shyamalan grounds the proceedings in credible psychological underpinnings that make the eventual cat-and-mouse battle between the two characters emotionally compelling as well as increasingly suspenseful.

Although Casey isn’t a particularly well-drawn character — Kevin and his personalities dominate Split — Taylor-Joy (The Witch ) shows a ferocious grit as a long-time survivor determined to stay alive. Richardson and Sula have little to do, but Buckley is excellent as a brilliant therapist who specialises in personality disorders, her conversations with Kevin consistently riveting. If Shyamalan executes the demands of the close-quarters thriller fairly effectively throughout, it’s these smart, unsettling scenes between Buckley and McAvoy where he gets to show off his ability to create tense moments from seemingly simple situations.

Split boasts a wonderfully funky atmosphere, thanks in large part to cinematographer Mike Gioulakis and production designer Mara LePere-Schloop. Kevin’s underground lair is just drab and rundown enough to feel both ordinary and disturbingly alien, leading to a powerful final showdown between Kevin and Casey that legitimately raises the stakes and believably ties into their backstories. The movie’s barebones construction may not be very inventive, but Shyamalan and his cast keep finding clever ways to sidestep familiarity to give their film its own personality.        

Production companies: Blinding Edge Pictures, Blumhouse Productions

Worldwide distribution: Universal Pictures, www.universalpictures.com

Producers: Marc Bienstock, M. Night Shyamalan, Jason Blum

Executive producers: Kevin Frakes, Steven Schneider, Ashwin Rajan

Cinematography: Mike Gioulakis

Production design: Mara LePere-Schloop     

Editor: Luke Ciarrocchi

Music: West Dylan Thordson           

Website: www.splitmovie.com

Main Cast: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula

• United States

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Film Review: ‘Split’

A welcome return to form from 'The Sixth Sense' director M. Night Shyamalan, whose unhinged new mind-bender is a worthy extension of his early work.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Multiple personality disorder, like amnesia, is one of those aberrant mental states that has been a curse to those who suffer, but a gift to screenwriters over the years. From Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” to Brian De Palma’s “Dressed to Kill,” filmmakers have long exploited how little we truly understand about the condition — though none has pushed it quite as far as  M. Night Shyamalan  does in “ Split ,” treating dissociative identity disorder not as the twist, but as the premise on which this wickedly compelling abduction thriller is founded: James McAvoy  plays a lunatic kidnapper with at least 23 personalities to his name.

Rest assured, there are plenty of proper twists to follow, none more unexpected than the fact that Shyamalan himself has managed to get his groove back after a slew of increasingly atrocious misfires. To be fair, it’s hard to imagine any writer/director sustaining a career based almost entirely on surprising audiences. And though he lost us for a while there — water-intolerant aliens, anyone? — by trading on ingenuity rather than big-budget special effects, Shyamalan has created a tense, frequently outrageous companion piece to one of his earliest and best movies.

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But Shyamalan isn’t the only one getting a makeover here. Presumably tired of playing handsome, uncomplicated leading men, McAvoy — a talented Scottish actor best known as the young Professor X in the “X-Men” prequels — has recently expanded his repertoire to include unsavory creeps in films such as “Trance” and “Filth.” Those roles may as well have been practice laps for the Olympic main event that is “Split,” in which his performance is splintered between a gay fashion designer, a renegade nine-year-old, an obsessive-compulsive control freak, and a crazy church lady, among others.

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Shyamalan introduces these wildly different personae one at a time, revealing them through the eyes of the movie’s three main characters, a trio of teenage girls taken prisoner from a high school birthday party, who wake up — like the victims in a nightmarish new subgenre of sadism that includes films like “Saw” and “10 Cloverfield Lane” — in a bunker-like cell with only the dimmest clue of the fate that awaits them. Popular above ground, Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) and Marcia (Jessica Sula) are the first to panic, reacting as most audiences probably would in their shoes, while brooding outsider Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) seems unusually calm … at first, at least.

Trapped underground in an undetermined location (the actual spot is the film’s next-to-last twist), the girls spend several days trying to devise ways to escape. Each attempt will have moviegoers digging their fingernails deeper into their armrests, as McAvoy’s totally unpredictable character manages to gain the upper hand, while the girls try to make sense of the information before them. Meanwhile, to make things a bit easier on the audience, their captor slips out at regular intervals to visit his shrink, Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley, the classic “Carrie” actress who also appeared in Shyamalan’s “The Happening”), a sympathetic ear who dispenses exposition by the wheelbarrow.

The more we learn, the scarier McAvoy’s character(s) starts to sound. At the same time, among the would-be victims, only Casey feels fleshed out, as Shyamalan gradually reveals the young lady’s troubled backstory via flashbacks to childhood hunting trips. Taylor-Joy, who recently starred in Robert Eggers’ “The Witch,” has a knack for suggesting dark undercurrents to superficially lovely characters, to the extent that we start to wonder whether McAvoy has meet his match.

Shyamalan’s goal is to keep us guessing, and in that respect, “Split” is a resounding success — even if in others, it could have you rolling your eyes. Still, scaling down to a relatively modest budget and just a handful of locations has forced him to get creative with the script, while a handful of new hires — most notably “It Follows” DP Mike Gioulakis, whose crisp, steady-handed gaze plays against the gritty confusion of the genre — elevate the result in such a way that we’re more inclined to consider the characters’ psychology, even though Shyamalan appears to be making it up to suit his purposes.

Ultimately, “Split” belongs to McAvoy, who has ample scenery to chew, but doesn’t stop there — he practically swallows the camera with his tiger-like teeth. With his head shaved, the actor depends ever so slightly on costume changes (sly contributions from Paco Delgado, who worked on “The Danish Girl”), but otherwise conveys his transformations through body language, facial expression, and accent, as his various selves take “the light” — since, per Fletcher, only one can come out to play at a time. As in “Psycho,” there’s a tendency to over-explain, and while Shyamalan is basically making up rules for dissociative identity disorder as he goes along, the condition has afforded McAvoy the role of his career.

Reviewed at AFI Fest, Nov. 15, 2016. (Also in Fantastic Fest.) MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 117 MIN.

• Production: A Universal Pictures release and presentation of a Blinding Edge Pictures, BlumHouse Prods. production. Producers: M. Night Shyamalan, Jason Blum, Marc Bienstock. Executive producers: Ashwin Rajan, Steven Schneider, Kevin Frakes, Buddy Patrick.
• Crew: Director, writer: M. Night Shyamalan. Camera (color, widescreen): Mike Gioulakis. Editor: Luke Franco Ciarrocchi.
• With: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Jessica Sula, Haley Lu Richardson

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Den of Geek

Split Review

Split is a thrilling return to form for M. Night Shyamalan that proves he still has many new tricks up his sleeve.

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M. Night Shyamalan, master of the twisty high-concept thriller, seemed to have lost his way for a while there. But a little more than a year since reinventing himself with the found footage thriller  The Visit , the Philly filmmaker returns with a movie that’s likely to re-endear himself to the fans who’ve been unsatisfied with his post- Unbreakable  work.

Split  starts with teenager Casey ( The Witch ’s Anya Taylor-Joy) attending a party where she clearly was only invited due to pity. Without a ride home, the father of another classmate agrees to drive Casey back, but what she and the two other girls (Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula) don’t realize is that this papa isn’t driving their car. He’s been replaced by Kevin (James McAvoy), a dangerous man who abducts them and then locks the girls in his basement, where they soon learn that their kidnapper is suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). He has 23 distinct personalities to be exact.

While at a glance,  Split  might begin somewhat like last year’s abduction thriller  10 Cloverfield Lane , it soon veers off into far more “Shyamalan-esque” territory. We start to learn more about Kevin and his personalities through his sessions with psychiatrist Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley), who thinks that his more “unstable” personas, i.e. Dennis and Patricia, might be coming to the forefront. Through this period, the film also flashes back to Casey’s youth when she’s deer hunting with her father and uncle, and we learn more about why she has such a steely nature when faced with such adversity.

Casey also shows the most sympathy for Kevin and his various personalities, or at least the ones he allows her to see, including Patricia, his more feminine side who empathizes with the girls’ situation more than the meticulously clean freak Dennis. Dr. Fletcher mainly deals with Barry, a talented fashion designer, having banned Dennis and even Patricia from the sessions. Casey is especially taken by Hedwig, as Kevin regresses to his nine-year-old self, although they each tease of something more dangerous arriving. Eventually.

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Kevin has successfully compartmentalized these different sides of himself into their own personalities, each with their own attire and mannerism, which is why more than anything, the film makes a great platform to display the many talents of the underrated McAvoy, who proves that he can deliver quite a range of eclectic emotions when given a decent role. From the effeminate Barry to the nine-year-old Hedwig—who has a penchant for mean dance routines—McAvoy is so endlessly entertaining in this role that your own reactions are likely to be similar to the abducted young women’s perpetual state of shock.

Anya Taylor-Joy gives an equally compelling performance as a character who has been damaged in her past, perhaps as much as Kevin, and she plays well off McAvoy. The same can be said about stage legend Betty Buckley, who allows everything that Dr. Fletcher says about Kevin’s DID to be believable. And giving any sort of weight behind this movie’s science certainly helps the film’s veracity. Similarly, Shyamalan has always proven himself to be good with characters and dialogue, and both skills are on full display here, even with some of the smaller supporting roles. In fact, this may be his best screenplay in 10 or more years.

Still, there are things that certainly might make you scratch your head, especially as the last act gets a little out of hand in terms of keeping track of what is happening, or who is in control of Kevin’s body at any given time. That ends up leaving more questions than answers, but you’ll want to make sure to stay through the end credits for a very welcome surprise for long-time Shyamalan fans.

Split  opens nationwide on Friday, Jan. 20.

3.5 out of 5

Edward Douglas

Based in New York City, Edward Douglas has been writing about movies for 14 years, including his weekly movie preview column The Weekend Warrior. He's a…

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Common Sense Media Review

Teen girls in danger in smart, satisfying, scary thriller.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Split is a smart, satisfying horror thriller from Sixth Sense director M. Night Shyamalan. It's about a man (James McAvoy) with multiple personalities (aka dissociative identity disorder). Violence and scariness are the big issues here. Characters die, women are kidnapped…

Why Age 14+?

Women are kidnapped and locked up. They're treated roughly and sprayed with a ma

One use of "f--k" and an abbreviated use of "motherf----r," as well as two uses

Teen girls are forced to remove articles of clothing; they're shown in bras, pan

Adults drink cans of beer during a deer hunt.

Any Positive Content?

Casey is a survivor, clever and self-reliant under pressure. She stands up for h

Not a lot of overtly positive messages messages, but the film does explore the u

Violence & Scariness

Women are kidnapped and locked up. They're treated roughly and sprayed with a mace-like knockout spray. A man holds a knife to a girl's stomach. A man is hit with a chair. A young woman's stomach is ripped open (very brief). A man squeezes a woman around her middle, breaking ribs/spine. Characters die. Fighting with baseball bat. Sounds of ripping/eating a human body. Suggestions of an abusive uncle-niece relationship; a teen girl is shown with multiple scars on hr stomach and arms. Rifles and shotguns seen/used; shots are fired. A small girl points a rifle at a man. Characters hunt deer in the woods; dead deer seen. Offscreen attack.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

One use of "f--k" and an abbreviated use of "motherf----r," as well as two uses of "s--t," plus "blow me," "ass," "damn," "hell," "Jesus," and "God" (as exclamations).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Teen girls are forced to remove articles of clothing; they're shown in bras, panties, and other underthings. Reference to a man who "likes to watch young girls dance naked." Reference to a "prank" in which teen girls grab a man's hands and put them on their breasts. Strange, brief, comical kiss, with a reference to "being pregnant."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Role Models

Casey is a survivor, clever and self-reliant under pressure. She stands up for herself and thinks clearly in a crisis, although she gets very little reward for her strength.

Positive Messages

Not a lot of overtly positive messages messages, but the film does explore the unknown possibilities of the human body -- and how a certain state of mind can exert control over our physical selves.

Parents need to know that Split is a smart, satisfying horror thriller from Sixth Sense director M. Night Shyamalan . It's about a man ( James McAvoy ) with multiple personalities (aka dissociative identity disorder). Violence and scariness are the big issues here. Characters die, women are kidnapped and hurt, and a young girl is abused by her uncle (though there's not a lot of gore or horror, and much takes place off screen). Characters fight; one is hit with a chair, and others are threatened with baseball bats and knives. A body is briefly shown with its stomach ripped open. Rifles and shotguns are seen and sometimes fired; characters hunt deer. Teen girls are forced to remove some of their clothes, revealing their bras, panties, and other underthings. There are also spoken sexual references, as well as infrequent swearing (including one "f--k," plus "s--t," "ass," and more) and some social drinking by adults. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (40)
• Kids say (70)

Based on 40 parent reviews

An outstanding film with incredible acting but it's very important not to let any kid under 14 watch it.

What's the story.

In SPLIT, teen birthday girl Claire ( Haley Lu Richardson ) is finishing up a party with her friend Marcia ( Jessica Sula ). But her "mercy invite," troubled Casey ( Anya Taylor-Joy ), can't find a ride home. Claire's dad prepares to drive them, but then a mysterious man ( James McAvoy ) kidnaps all three girls and locks them in a windowless room. They notice that he acts strangely, showing different personalities and holding conversations with himself. Unbeknownst to the girls, the man goes to see his therapist, Dr. Fletcher ( Betty Buckley ), who tries to communicate with his 23 personalities. But he warns her of the coming of "the Beast," an all-powerful monster that could be a twenty-fourth -- and who might just have an appetite for teen girls.

Is It Any Good?

Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan launches a full-fledged comeback with this tense, satisfying horror-thriller. Split is refreshingly infused with thoughtful ideas and sly suggestion, rather than gore or brutality. Shyamalan has had quite an up-and-down career; in 2016 he tested the waters with the small-scale The Visit , and he now makes a bold return to his Sixth Sense and Unbreakable glory days. Split actually resembles the latter film in some ways, rooted in real-world theories about the elastic limits of human possibility.

As ever, the director's camerawork is above reproach; he creates a sinister, windowless, underground lair, smoothly snaking with corridors, dingy doors and pipes, and harsh pools of light. His writing is subtler here than in other films, with a few odd touches but confident overall. Best of all are the two leads: Joy ( The Witch ) has an awesome, ethereal presence, and McAvoy conveys at least a half-dozen of his character's personalities with an uncanny, haunting clarity. Split is a smart movie that will undoubtedly leave viewers thinking -- and discussing.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Split 's violence . How much takes place on screen vs. off? Does that approach soften the impact of the violence ?

Is the movie scary ? Why or why not? What tools and tricks do filmmakers use to scare viewers? Why is it sometimes fun to be scared?

How does Split compare to other movies about dissociative identity disorder (multiple-personality disorder)?

Do you believe the human mind is capable of asserting control over the body, possibly correcting and curing diseases and disorders or gaining strength?

How does Split compare to Shyamalan's other movies? How is it similar? How is it different? What is he known for?

Movie Details

• In theaters : January 20, 2017
• On DVD or streaming : April 18, 2017
• Cast : James McAvoy , Haley Lu Richardson , Anya Taylor-Joy
• Director : M. Night Shyamalan
• Inclusion Information : Indian/South Asian directors, Female actors, Latino actors
• Studio : Universal Pictures
• Genre : Horror
• Run time : 116 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : disturbing thematic content and behavior, violence and some language
• Last updated : August 13, 2024

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Split ending & final twist explained.

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Every M. Night Shyamalan Movie Plot Twist Explained

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• Split's ending reveals it's a surprise Unbreakable sequel, setting up Shyamalan's dark superhero trilogy.
• Kevin's dissociative identity disorder leads to a physical transformation, creating the dark Horde personalities.
• Split tackles themes of generational abuse and trauma, emphasizing the importance of addressing the past.

MAJOR SPOILERS for Split and Glass ahead.

The Split ending explained that M. Night Shyamalan was back. The director famously entered a massive slump in the '00s, following up his success on films like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable with a series of critical duds. After the outright failure of After Earth , however, Shyamalan made some course corrections . The director's 2015 film The Visit saw him take a step back, making a low-budget movie high on ideas. Shyamalan followed that project up with the well-reviewed Split , his most layered story in well over a decade.

Split is loosely inspired by a true story , and it follows three kidnapped girls locked up by Kevin (James McAvoy), a man with 23 distinct personalities hidden within him. Two of the darker personalities have taken over and hope to use the girls as part of a dark evolutionary plan. Shyamalan’s movies always have twist endings that leave viewers with questions, and Split is complex. There’s a drip-feed of information about the main plot, a frankly haunting background to one of the main characters, and arguably the best M. Night Shyamalan plot twist since The Sixth Sense .

Since The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan has been known for his plot twists, so which ones make sense and which are a stretch too far into silliness?

What Was Up With Kevin's Personalities In Split?

Kevin suffers from a fantastical form of dissociative identity disorder.

McAvoy’s "main" character is Kevin, a regular guy who, due to a series of traumatic childhood events, has created a string of alternative personalities, or alters, most of whom are mentally stronger than he was initially. In this world, dissociative identity disorder doesn't just lead to a psychological change, but also a physical one; Kevin can actually alter his body with each personality switch, meaning some personalities can have OCD and need glasses, while others need insulin shots.

Who Kevin is at any given moment depends on who stepped into "the light" in his mind, something typically controlled by the personality known as Barry. The core personalities shown are Dennis, Patricia, Hedwig, and Barry. The former two — who call themselves the Horde — are the darker sides of Kevin, who have previously been pushed down by Barry and the rest but break out by manipulating the childlike Hedwig, who can take control of the light at will. Others try and break through to make a cry for help, but the Horde repeatedly pushes them back.

The Horde’s plan is to unleash the Beast, a mythical (at least in Kevin’s psyche) 24th personality.

It’s important to note that while this is Kevin’s body, his personality doesn’t seem complicit in either side of what's going on inside him — when he finally does emerge, he begs to be killed, revealing that even though Barry and co. are the good guys, they’re still going against the original alter’s will. The Horde’s plan is to unleash the Beast, a mythical (at least in Kevin’s psyche) 24th personality. It’s only alluded to in the film, but the Beast appears to be based on the animals in the zoo above where Kevin lives.

In the third act, the Beast breaks out thanks to Dennis and kills two of the kidnapped girls, but allows protagonist Casey to live due to her own troubled past, recognizing a bond between them. After this murder spree, Kevin appears to have reached a point where the Horde is in full control and can bring the indestructible Beast out at will, making him an almost Jekyll and Hyde superhero. And, yes, superhero really is the word, as shown in the sequel, Glass .

How Casey's Past Protected Her From The Beast In Split

Her trauma echoed in the beast's shared memories.

While the film is ostensibly concerned with Kevin’s past, the person whose backstory is elaborated on most explicitly is Casey's. She’s introduced as the weird kid who's always on her own and constantly getting into trouble, only invited to the birthday party from which the girls were kidnapped out of pity. Despite these social defects, she shows a proactiveness and understanding of the dire situation that allows her to succeed where the others fail.

The truth behind this, however, is rather haunting. In a series of flashbacks, audiences see her being taught to hunt by her father, at first assumed to be the cause of her skewed view of the world, but later revealed as context for the horrific abuse at the hands of her uncle. The film provides a chilling representation of pedophilia — the grooming scene, with the adult wanting to “ play animals ” is terrifying, as is the power the uncle wields even when held at gunpoint — and goes to great efforts to show how it affected Casey's life growing up.

The story resolves itself with Casey finally finding the power to talk about her experiences, a decision in stark contrast to Kevin. Rather than letting a troubled past manifest, she chooses to deal with the problem , which ties directly into the film’s core theme. It's a theme that continues in Glass , the final movie of the trilogy.

Split's Themes Of Generational Abuse & Trauma Explained

How casey and kevin deal with their pasts affects their futures.

On a thematic level, Split is predominantly about how people deal with abuse. Both the protagonist and antagonist are the product of turbulent childhoods that have led to them becoming outsiders. For Casey, this manifests in her desire to be alone, with silence essentially her coping mechanism — she causes trouble so she can be sent to detention and get away from everyone. Kevin's is a more extreme case, hinted to come from a darker past, where he's completely repressed the pain and birthed new personalities to cope with his trauma.

There's an interesting connection between those " damaged " people. Casey uses her vague grasp of Kevin's mental fracturing to try and help herself escape while the other hostages can't concentrate. Later, the Beast doesn't kill Casey because he sees her self-harm scars that show him she's similar to him. It's a brutal but strangely poignant reflection on how people suffering from mental health issues can view themselves as alone, not seeing their connection to the wider world. This ties into the bigger solution to this insular thinking that the director presents; finding and accepting the compassion and understanding of others.

It's a brutal but strangely poignant reflection on how people suffering from mental health issues can view themselves as alone, not seeing their connection to the wider world.

Throughout the movie, Kevin is offered empathy from Dr. Fletcher despite the mocking from her neighbors and peers, but the Dennis personality keeps ignoring it, willingly leading him down the dark Beast path - literally finding comfort in only himself. In contrast, Casey learns to address her past, making an active move against it and starting herself on a better trajectory. It's a rather simple notion, but a well-meaning one. The film preaches acceptance and openness, both to oneself and to others.

Split Is Actually Unbreakable 2

The movie sets up a third film in glass.

For years, Shyamalan had teased a sequel to 2000’s Unbreakable , his dark superhero drama. It turned out he wasn’t lying — in a jaw-dropping rug pull, it’s revealed in Split 's final scene the film is actually Unbreakable 2 . The coda plays immediately after the end credits title card, showing a diner where a TV report about Kevin is playing and customers comment on its similarity to an event from 15 years ago involving a guy in a wheelchair.

The camera then tracks over to reveal Bruce Willis, reprising his role of David Dunn (evidenced by his nametag), who dryly confirms the old villain’s identity as Mr. Glass and walks out. It's a plot twist that reveals the characters of Split and Unbreakable have been in the same world all along.

No matter Split 's effectiveness as a thriller, it is an astounding twist. It’s completely unexpected and more audacious than any other movie before; Split is a surprise sequel and nobody had a clue until its release. Building to this shocker is likely why some parts of the film feel a bit scattered or off-base, but it does retroactively make the whole thing a lot more intriguing.

As with Unbreakable, which revealed the twist that Samuel L. Jackson was the bad guy, Split explores the psychology of what would make someone become a maniacal villain.

In fact, it pretty much reshapes the movie's entire purpose; Split isn't a hostage thriller, but a supervillain origin story . By the time he's able to control the Beast, Kevin has essentially become the sort of monster that a traditional comic book hero would take on, and, as Glass later proved, that was Shyamalan's real goal. As with Unbreakable, which revealed the twist that Samuel L. Jackson was the bad guy, Split explores the psychology of what would make someone become a maniacal villain.

What Happened After The Events Of Split

It all finally built to shyamalan's dark superhero trilogy.

The third movie brings them all together in a knock-down, drag-out fight between a noble hero, the beast he pursues, and the manipulative supervillain pulling the strings from the shadows.

The ending of Split set up a broad scope for the threequel ending to Shyamalan's intense, low-budget superhero riff. Unbreakable told the origin story of Bruce Willis' David Dunn, aka The Overseer; Split told the origin story of James McAvoy's Kevin Wendell Crumb, aka The Beast; while Glass wrapped up the trilogy with the origin story of Samuel L. Jackson's diabolical villain Elijah Price, aka Mr. Glass. The third movie brings them all together in a knock-down, drag-out fight between a noble hero, the beast he pursues, and the manipulative supervillain pulling the strings from the shadows.

After the events of Split , which occur three weeks before those of Glass , it's revealed that David has been hunting Kevin since the news of his kidnapping and killing the girls got out. When the police arrive, Dunn agrees to turn himself in quietly and soon finds himself locked up in a psychiatric ward with Kevin and Elijah. The three break out and clash again after Price convinces Kevin to help him, and another returning Split character is revealed: during their fight, Split 's Casey also shows up, seemingly no worse for wear, and tries to get through to Kevin.

Though he's in Beast mode, Casey is hoping that the brief connection she shared with Kevin will be enough to once again tame the Beast. Of course, it's an M. Night Shyamalan movie, so there isn't just one twist in the third act, but two. It's revealed Mr. Glass created both the superhero The Overseer and the supervillain The Beast with the Eastrail 177 train crash . Not only did David Dunn survive the crash, but Kevin's father was killed in it, leaving Kevin to grow up with an abusive mother.

Then it's revealed that the psych ward psychiatrist, Dr. Staple, is actually an agent of a secret society that monitors and eliminates threats from superpowered people. By the ending of Glass, all three — David, Kevin, and Elijah — are dead. Considering the terror of The Beast unleashed in the climax of Split , however, that may have been the most merciful ending for both Kevin and the world.

The Real Meaning Of The Split Ending

Casey & the beast share a common connection.

The Split ending was a fascinating twist long before David Dunn appeared in the actual final twist of the movie. The David scene connecting Unbreakable to Split was fun for fans, but it had little to nothing to do with the actual story M. Night Shyamalan was telling in this film. The Beast is a monster who kills and has almost no empathy for anyone. However, the ending of the film shows this is not entirely true. There is one person that Kevin Wendell Crumb has empathy for — Casey Cooke.

It shows The Beast sees a kindred spirit in Casey.

This is important because it shows The Beast sees a kindred spirit in Casey. He sees that she has lived through years of abuse and has the scars to show for it. He recognizes something in her that he has in himself. Kevin built these personalities to protect him from the pain of his life, and he sees that Casey might not have that same protection, but she is as broken as he is . He chooses to let her live because she is someone who has suffered, and he won't make her hurt anymore.

This ending plays out in Glass on the other side of things. Casey lived through a horrendous experience and is lucky she got out alive. However, instead of hating the monster who tortured her and almost killed her, she sees the monster as he saw her — a tortured soul who is fighting back and lashing out at an unfair world. Split ended with The Beast letting Casey live, and while she failed in trying to help save him in Glass , she allowed him to find a way to at least see acceptance before he died.

Not available

M. Night Shyamalan's Split follows Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), a man with dissociative identity disorder, who kidnaps three teenage girls and imprisons them in an underground facility. When Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) realizes that she can play Crumb's personalities against one another, she begins to form a plan for escape before she is sacrificed to a creature he refers to as "the Beast". 

Split review: "A Shyamalan movie through and through – and it's his best in some time"

GamesRadar+ Verdict

This is a Shyamalan movie through and through. And it’s his best in some time, thanks to a magnetic McAvoy.

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Meet Dennis. He wears glasses, has OCD and kidnaps girls from parking lots. Dennis lives in a windowless basement with Hedwig, a nine-year-old who loves Kanye West (“He’s my main man!”) and keeps hamsters.

Dennis and Hedwig are kept in line by Patricia, a prim matriarch who likes sweaters, brooches and carving knives. And then there’s Barry, a wannabe fashion designer who freely admits he has “feelings of being overwhelmed”.

Then again, Barry might be Dennis. Or Jade, or Samuel, or any one of the other “alters” that live inside Kevin (James McAvoy), a troubled young man whose dissociative identity disorder (DID for short) means he has 23 distinct personalities fighting for his body.

Small wonder that his prisoners Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), Marcia (Jessica Sula) and Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) are as bemused as they are terrified. Not only do they not know why they’ve been abducted, they also don’t know by whom.

We’re used to fiendish plots emanating from M. Night Shyamalan, the precocious wunderkind behind The Sixth Sense and Signs whose career became a rocky road since The Village (2004).

Split, though, might well be his most compellingly warped concoction to date, its genre trappings – think Room meets The Missing at 10 Cloverfield Lane – acting merely as gateway drugs to the altogether more demented thriller taking place within Kevin’s noggin.

The film’s torment of its female leads does border at times on exploitation; on the other hand, it does pave the way for Casey to come into her own, the character’s history of abuse giving the nous she’ll need if she’s to survive this subterranean nightmare.

Taylor-Joy, so impressive in The Witch , is even finer here as a deceptively docile captive whose passivity masks both intelligence and gumption. Yet it would be foolish to suggest this is anything but James McAvoy’s movie.

In a role that’s effectively a dozen performances in one, the X-Men actor is simply astounding. Chillingly cold one moment, malevolently mumsy the next, he offers the modern equivalent of Alec Guinness’ turn in Kind Hearts and Coronets : a masterclass in physical dexterity and vocal control that builds towards a volcanic eruption of bestial, vein-bulging ferocity when yet another, submerged personality comes bubbling to the surface.

(He is also very funny, grace notes such as Patricia’s conspiratorial winks and Hedwig’s lisp – “eck-thetawa!” – ensuring each persona can both tickle and unsettle.)

It’s too early to say if Split marks the beginning of a return to form for Shyamalan; after all, he’s let us down before. But by the end, those who’ve stuck with him throughout will have ample cause to feel their faith was justified.

Neil Smith is a freelance film critic who has written for several publications, including Total Film. His bylines can be found at the BBC, Film 4 Independent, Uncut Magazine, SFX Magazine, Heat Magazine, Popcorn, and more. 

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California Split

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Watch California Split with a subscription on Prime Video, rent on Fandango at Home, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Apple TV.

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Aimless yet amiable, California Split is minor but rewarding Altman, elevated by the chemistry between leads Elliott Gould and George Segal.

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Roger Ebert’s review of The Village is hilarious

The last paragraph;

It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore.

And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we're back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets.

No deep opinions on The Village, I barely remember anything about it, just thought R.E review was funny.

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Banana Split

There’s something about the summer in between high school and college. Friendships break up or become super clingy, due to all that impending separation anxiety. Romances break up. People get way too drunk and hug it out. Tears are shed. Things get a little … intense. “Banana Split” takes place during such a summer, complete with brightly-colored chapter markers: “89 Days Until Orientation,” and etc. Even with the clock running down, there’s an in-between feeling, a “this is forever and yet it’s also ending” feeling, nicely captured by director Benjamin Kasulke , with poignant and sometimes funny needle drops, and two excellent central performances from Hannah Marks and Liana Liberato . There’s a lot more complexity here than may meet the eye, even with the title’s broad-stroke (so to speak) double entendre.

“Banana Split” opens with a montage, a bold and not entirely successful choice, showing the falling-in-love, virginity-losing, and eventual old-married-couple-fighting of April (Marks) and her hottie boyfriend Nick ( Dylan Sprouse ). As the montage reveals in a quick succession of scenes, they’re together for two years (basically a 40-year-marriage in high school years). But when April gets into Boston University, all the way across the country from Los Angeles, things change. Nick is going to school locally in California. He’s hurt she would make such a choice. The two don’t break up in a formal way. April still thinks they’re going out, until one day she notices something horrifying: Nick posting pictures on his Instagram of him making out with another girl .

April is a pretty tough cookie, and judging from her mother (a very funny Jessica Hecht ), and her trash-talking younger sister ( Addison Riecke ), the apples all fall from the same tree. Tough as she may be, April is devastated by Nick abandoning her (and confused by him still texting her). Luke Spencer Roberts plays Ben, friend to both Nick and April, who finds himself stuck in the middle. Meanwhile, April becomes obsessed with this new girl, who has dropped into their crowd from out of nowhere. She is Clara (Liana Liberato), a coolly beautiful and confident blonde, and April glowers at her from across crowded parties, getting way too drunk, tears pooling up in her eyes. Eventually, though, the girls become friends, and decide to continue their friendship without telling anyone—not Nick, not social media, no one. It’s like they are cheating on everyone with each other. They sneak around, and Clara keeps seeing Nick, and April has many mixed feelings.

The script was co-written by Hannah Marks and Joey Power (this is their second script, the first being 2018’s “ After Everything “). Marks also served as executive producer for the film. Marks is just 27 years old, and this alone is hope for the future. Young women creating their own work, initiating projects, getting it done, not waiting around for someone in power to “give them” roles they deserve. Marks was recently named by Rolling Stone as one of the “25 under 25 changing the world.” A heady label, but Marks seems more than ready to take on all those challenges. As children, both Marks and Liberato were profiled in a 2006 New York Times Magazine article about child actors (Liberato was featured on the cover). Child actors often flame out, suffering from the “too much too soon” tradition in the industry. But Marks and Liberato have made that transition with grace: they both work all the time, in television series (Marks in “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency” and Liberato in “Sons of Anarchy” and “Light as a Feather”). In 2011, Liberato gave a tremendous performance in David Schwimmer’s “Trust” playing a 14-year-old child lured into a “relationship” by a much-older online predator.

Here, together, Marks and Liberato make such an interesting onscreen pair. Marks is all wisecracks, but with an undercurrent of constant roiling emotion, rage and hurt and humor. She wears her mixed feelings on her sleeve. And Liberato plays a girl who presents as confident and open—but the truth is she’s struggling to find her way, she’s a little bit lost, even. Clara is not going to college. She doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life. Sometimes flashes of deep ambivalence cross her face, showing that Clara doesn’t quite like the way things are going, that she may not be as easy-breezy as she seems.

“Banana Split”‘s opening sequence is a little rough. The dialogue is presentational, and the jokey tone is a bit arch. But once the two girls start hanging out together, “Banana Split” settles into its rhythm. There are moments of poignancy and humor. This is an entertaining and often insightful look at female friendship during a particularly strange time, the hiatus before everything changes, the last gasp before adulthood and independence. The film is refreshingly frank about teenage life, the drinking and drugs, the fake IDs, the drunken Lyft rides home, all of the bad choices everyone makes. The film isn’t phobic or leering about female sexuality. It’s all very matter-of-fact, another refreshing choice. Even Nick gets to have complexity (eventually). This is director Kasulke’s first narrative feature, but he comes to the table with a lot of experience as a cinematographer and it shows. The film looks beautiful, using natural locations and available golden sunlight, all of which creates a real sense of the environment.

Make it through the first 10 minutes. It’s just the film warming up. The rest of it flows.

Available on VOD today, 3/27.

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O’Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master’s in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

• Hannah Marks as April
• Liana Liberato as Clara
• Dylan Sprouse as Nick
• Addison Riecke as Agnes
• Haley Ramm as Sally
• Jessica Hecht as Susan
• Ben Konigsberg as Mordecai
• Meagan Kimberly Smith as Molly
• Benjamin Kasulke
• Brendan Walsh

Cinematographer

• Darin Moran
• Hannah Marks

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