Split (2017) * *

Directed by:  M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula,
Brad William Henke

Split has stretches of some of the best work M. Night Shyamalan has done since Unbreakable (2000), but in the end the movie is simply overlong and just a tad too preposterous to pass muster.    There are questions I tried to set aside as Split unfolded, but they nagged at me.    More on those later.    As Split opens, three teenage girls: Casey (Taylor-Joy), Claire (Richardson), and Marcia (Sula) leave a party at the mall and are kidnapped by Kevin (McAvoy), who knocks them out with spray gas and the three wake up in what appears to be a basement.  

Kevin, however, isn't just Kevin, but, as the girls learn soon enough, a man with multiple personalities.    23 to be exact.    We never see the real Kevin, but personalities such as Barry, an effeminate artist; Patricia, a proper British woman, Hedwig, a wounded 9-year old boy, and Dennis, an OCD-afflicted sociopath which is the personality Kevin assumed when he kidnapped the girls.   Two of the girls talk tough about overpowering him, while Casey actually takes the time to talk to and understand Kevin and the situation.  

Casey, in a way, understands Kevin's pain and trauma due to her own history of abuse by her uncle, which is seen in eerie flashbacks that create a menacing atmosphere.    She wants to escape, of course, but realizes that is a tricky errand here.    Kevin also regularly sees a compassionate psychiatrist (Buckley), who believes Kevin's personalities are not a sign of mental illness, but the potential power of the human mind.    She even speaks at international conferences about the matter, but with that being said, shouldn't she err on the side of caution and have Kevin committed?   Especially when she learns of the possibility of a 24th (and possibly the most frightening) personality emerging?   I couldn't determine if the shrink was the world's best or the world's worst.   There are two of the questions that stayed in the back of my mind which I tried to dismiss and simply enjoy the movie, but alas I could not.

When it becomes clear where the girls are stashed, I had to ask:  Doesn't anybody else occasionally roam the same halls and could perhaps stumble onto the girls?    And why doesn't the person firing a shotgun just shoot at the head?    No doubt James McAvoy (the young Professor X in the X-Men movies) relishes the opportunity to in essence play multiple roles.    He is quite creepily effective at it too; never giving in to the temptation to overact, making his performance(s) all the more subtly scary. Taylor-Joy is an effective foil, a teenage loner who actually empathizes a bit with her captor, knowing the damage abuse can heap upon its victims.     She is the only one who truly stands a chance.

But then Split overstays its welcome with a long chase and ending so dragged out that it loses any realistic effect.    We see all of the suspense Shyamalan carefully built up dissipate before our very eyes.   The movie loses its taut edge, although when compared to past Shyamalan letdowns like Signs, The Village, The Visit, and The Happening, the fact that Split actually had a chance until the final 30 minutes makes this film something of an improvement for him.