Ashdoc's movie review---Split

by ashdoc Mon Feb 27, 2017 5:13 pm

The critics were crowing about this Manoj Night Shyamalan film , and after a long time and a number of bad films he seemed to have found his groove back . So off I went to the theatre , like a loyal Indian to support this director of Indian origin in Hollywood .

The villain is also the leading actor of the film , and he is played by James McAvoy . The heroine is a young girl played by Anya Taylor-Joy . The movie has no hero , for no knight in shining armour comes to save the three young girls including the heroine kidnapped by the villain . The three must try to escape by themselves .

The villain has a strange disorder in which he has multiple personalities . The three young girls must cope with them during their harrowing time with the villain . Sometimes he is menacing , sometimes like a small child , sometimes like a woman , and so on and so forth . But when the girls try to ask his other personalities to help them escape , they don't help . However when the menacing personality comes forth , he is horrible and does bad things to them . The girls are shown in various stages of undress , which makes for some shady viewing . The heroine has a past and present of have suffered sexual abuse , and seems to be most capable of surviving the ordeal because she seems to be capable of manipulating the various personalities for her survival . Maybe the reason is that the villain has suffered childhood abuse himself in the past .

The villain visits has psychiatrist ( played by Betty Buckley ) regularly , and she detects something wrong since his villainous act . She fancies herself an expert on his condition and delivers international speeches on it . The sufferer of this syndrome can have different physical attributes for his different personalities , and the most dangerous of these personalities gives him awesome physical powers like a superhuman .

The psychiatrist decides to visit his place to see what is wrong , and therein lies the chance for three girls to escape . But can they escape ? Will the villain allow this ? The movie will have to be watched for the answers .

The acting by the leading actors is very good and they show a range of emotions . But the movie drags on and on and a satisfactory conclusion is not reached . Shyamalan tries to make cerebral thrillers , but maybe I am not cerebral enough to like what he makes . It cannot be called regular commercial fare and I could not make out if it was an art film ( non cerebral person you know ) , but maybe the hi fundoo people may like it . I being low fundoo , I didn't particularly care for it .

Background score , photography is good and colours are decent . The movie is low budget and has no fancy locations or any stupendous special effects .

Verdict---Not good .

Two stars out of five .