Split (2016)
Country: US/JAP
Technical: col/2.39:1 117m
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Jessica Sula
Synopsis:
A security guard with a multiple personality disorder abducts three schoolgirls and holds them captive in his basement. Meanwhile his psychiatrist notices behavioural changes in her patient which give her cause to suspect that a new, unspeakable alter ego is about to manifest itself.
Review:
It was high time that a thriller scenario took child abuse as its inspiration, and who better than Shyamalan to give it a supranormal twist. Finely judged flashbacks gradually alert us to the fact that one of his captives holds surprises of her own in store, while the scenes with the psychologist provide a measured counterpoint to the more generic bids for freedom of the potential victims, leaving us uncertain as to their ultimate fate. More obviously, of course, the film is a vehicle for the performance credentials of its leading man, who gleefully expands his range from twitchily bashful ingenuousness to a shifting array of personae, as it were from an impressionist. Tense, absorbing, finely wrought entertainment, whose only misstep is an open ending.
Country: US/JAP
Technical: col/2.39:1 117m
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Jessica Sula
Synopsis:
A security guard with a multiple personality disorder abducts three schoolgirls and holds them captive in his basement. Meanwhile his psychiatrist notices behavioural changes in her patient which give her cause to suspect that a new, unspeakable alter ego is about to manifest itself.
Review:
It was high time that a thriller scenario took child abuse as its inspiration, and who better than Shyamalan to give it a supranormal twist. Finely judged flashbacks gradually alert us to the fact that one of his captives holds surprises of her own in store, while the scenes with the psychologist provide a measured counterpoint to the more generic bids for freedom of the potential victims, leaving us uncertain as to their ultimate fate. More obviously, of course, the film is a vehicle for the performance credentials of its leading man, who gleefully expands his range from twitchily bashful ingenuousness to a shifting array of personae, as it were from an impressionist. Tense, absorbing, finely wrought entertainment, whose only misstep is an open ending.
Country: US/JAP
Technical: col/2.39:1 117m
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Jessica Sula
Synopsis:
A security guard with a multiple personality disorder abducts three schoolgirls and holds them captive in his basement. Meanwhile his psychiatrist notices behavioural changes in her patient which give her cause to suspect that a new, unspeakable alter ego is about to manifest itself.
Review:
It was high time that a thriller scenario took child abuse as its inspiration, and who better than Shyamalan to give it a supranormal twist. Finely judged flashbacks gradually alert us to the fact that one of his captives holds surprises of her own in store, while the scenes with the psychologist provide a measured counterpoint to the more generic bids for freedom of the potential victims, leaving us uncertain as to their ultimate fate. More obviously, of course, the film is a vehicle for the performance credentials of its leading man, who gleefully expands his range from twitchily bashful ingenuousness to a shifting array of personae, as it were from an impressionist. Tense, absorbing, finely wrought entertainment, whose only misstep is an open ending.