Split (2016 American film)

Split
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	M. Night Shyamalan
Written by	M. Night Shyamalan
Starring	James McAvoy Anya Taylor-Joy Betty Buckley
Cinematography	Mike Gioulakis
Edited by	Luke Franco Ciarrocchi
Music by	West Dylan Thordson
Production companies	Blinding Edge Pictures Blumhouse Productions
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release dates	September 26, 2016 (2016-09-26) (Fantastic Fest) January 20, 2017 (2017-01-20) (United States)
Running time	117 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$10 million
Box office	$48.9 million

Split is a 2016 American psychological horror film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The film stars James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy and Betty Buckley and follows a man with 23 different personalities who kidnaps three girls. It is a thematic sequel to Shyamalan's, Unbreakable (2000).

Principal photography began on November 11, 2015, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The film premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 26, 2016 and was released in the United States on January 20, 2017 by Universal Pictures. The film received generally positive reviews and has grossed $47 million worldwide.

Plot

Three teenagers, friends Claire (Haley Lu Richardson), Marcia (Jessica Sula) and outsider Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), are kidnapped by "Dennis", one of the 23 split personalities inhabiting the body of Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), a victim of childhood abuse with severe dissociative identity disorder, and held captive in a cellar. Kevin's psychiatrist, Dr. Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley), who believes that in such cases the psychological unbalance can cause physiological changes, is concerned to find an email from Kevin's dominant personality, "Barry", asking for a meeting. Over the years Kevin has been treated, he appears to be stable: all of his personalities sit in chairs in a room, waiting for their turn "in the light" (controlling the body), while "Barry" controls who gets to go in the light. Two personalities, "Dennis" and "Patricia", are kept out of the light. In "Dennis"'s case, this because he likes to watch young girls dance naked, and he has both violent tendencies and has obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Claire and Marcia conspire to attack "Dennis", but are dissuaded by Casey who appears to have experience with abuse and wants to wait for a better chance. The girls realize Kevin's nature when "Patricia", who dresses as a woman when in the light, comes assures them that "Dennis" is forbidden from touching them as they serve a greater purpose. Casey seeks to befriend "Hedwig", a personality that claims to be a nine-year-old boy, who confides that they will be sacrificed to "The Beast", a rumored 24th personality, and inadvertently reveals that the cellar has recently been reinforced to hold them. Casey and Marcia barricade the door while Claire attempts to crawl through the fresh drywall, but "Dennis" emerges and stops her, locking Claire in a separate cell.

"Dennis" masquerades as "Barry" and attends a meeting with Dr. Fletcher, dismissing the e-mails, but Dr. Fletcher notices discrepancies in his behavior and quickly realizes "Dennis" and "Patricia" have supplanted "Barry" as the dominant personality, and they discuss the possibility of "the Beast" being real. Casey and Marcia later receive food from "Patricia", who brings them to the kitchen. Seeing an opportunity to escape, Marcia hits "Patricia" with a chair and flees, but is caught and placed in a different cell. Casey then continues to befriend "Hedwig", having earlier heard him mention a window in his bedroom.

"Dennis" once again visits Dr. Fletcher, and they talk about Kevin's father, who abandoned Kevin as a child aboard a train, leading the other personalities to believe that "the Beast" is hidden inside a train car. The personalities began manifesting to help Kevin cope with the abuse he was subjected to by his mother, who suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder. Arriving back to Casey's cell, "Hedwig" is persuaded to take Casey to "her" bedroom, but Casey is disappointed to learn there is only a drawing of a window. She grabs a functional walkie-talkie nearby and radios for help before being subdued by "Dennis". Casey then experiences flashbacks of being molested by her uncle John (Brad William Henke), who became her legal guardian after her father's (Sebastian Arcelus) death. She was first molested while on a hunting trip with her father and uncle, and she later contemplates killing her uncle with her shotgun, but hesitates and the opportunity is lost.

Dr. Fletcher becomes alarmed by a large number of email messages for help that she receives from Barry, so she rushes to Kevin's home and realizes he is responsible for the kidnappings. She excuses herself to go to the bathroom and tries to help the girls, but is caught, drugged and locked up by "Dennis", who then goes into a train car and becomes "the Beast", manifesting superhuman speed, strength, resilience and agility, directly analogous with several predators in the animal kingdom. Knowing that the only way to call to "the light" the real Kevin is to speak his full name, Dr. Fletcher writes it on a piece of paper before being killed by "the Beast". Meanwhile, the girls separately try to escape from their cells.

"The Beast" first kills Marcia and then Claire, while Casey stumbles upon Dr. Fletcher's corpse as well as her instructional note, and briefly calls Kevin to "the light" by speaking his name. Horrified by his actions, Kevin directs Casey to where his shotgun is and orders her to kill him before his other personalities begin to take over, switching from one to the other until "the Beast" returns and corners Casey after she gets the shotgun. She shoots him at point blank range, with no success. "The Beast" then voices his plans to rid the world of the "untouched", those whose hearts are impure because they have never suffered in their lives.

"The Beast" prepares to devour Casey when he notices John's molesting scars on her and rejoices in the fact that she is "pure". Concluding that troubled people are exceptional, "the Beast" spares Casey and leaves, while Casey is rescued by one of Kevin's co-workers and learns she was being held underneath the Philadelphia Zoo, where Kevin works and lives, in the basement of the maintenance building. In another hideout, "Dennis", "Patricia" and "Hedwig" exert permanent control of Kevin's body and admire the power of "the Beast" and their plans to change the world. Casey is returned to live with her uncle, but with a new found strength.

In a diner, patrons listen to the media coverage of Kevin's crimes, for which he's been nicknamed "The Horde". One of the patrons notes the resemblance between Kevin and a wheelchair-bound serial killer arrested 15 years prior, asking for the man's name. The man sitting next to her is revealed to be an older David Dunn (Bruce Willis), who reminds the patron that it was "Mr. Glass".

Cast

• James McAvoy as Kevin Wendell Crumb, a sufferer of dissociative identity disorder (DID), who has 23 prominent personalities, each with something peculiar or dangerous for his captives. Kevin's body chemistry changes with each personality, resulting in his 24th and final personality, "The Beast", being capable of superhuman levels of strength, speed, mobility (allowing him to scale walls and ceilings), and a voracious hunger for human flesh. The personalities are collectively known as "The Horde" by two of the personalities, "Dennis" and "Patricia", and "The Horde" becomes the name he is referred to in the news.
• Anya Taylor-Joy as Casey Cooke, a young girl with a traumatic past and a history of self-harm, who is kidnapped by Dennis, one of Kevin's personalities, to be sacrificed to the Beast. Izzie Coffey plays a 5-year-old Casey.
• Betty Buckley as Dr. Karen Fletcher, a psychologist who attempts to help Kevin with his DID, and believes that DID can, in extreme cases, cause physiological changes.
• Haley Lu Richardson as Claire Benoit, a classmate of Casey and a friend of Marcia, who is also kidnapped by Dennis to be sacrificed to the Beast.
• Jessica Sula as Marcia, a classmate of Casey and a friend of Claire, who is also kidnapped by Dennis to be sacrificed to the Beast.
• Brad William Henke as John, Casey's abusive uncle and legal guardian who molested her as a child.
• Sebastian Arcelus as Mr. Cooke, Casey's father.
• Neal Huff as Mr. Benoit, Claire's father.
• Kim Director as Hannah
• Lyne Renée as Academic Moderator
• M. Night Shyamalan as Jai, a security guard in Dr. Fletcher's apartment building.
• Bruce Willis as David Dunn

Production

On August 26, 2015, it was announced that M. Night Shyamalan would next direct a thriller which would star Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role. Shyamalan would also produce the film along with Jason Blum and Marc Bienstock. On October 2, 2015, James McAvoy was cast in the film to play the lead, replacing Phoenix. On October 12, 2015, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Jessica Sula, and Haley Lu Richardson were added to the cast. On October 27, 2015, Universal Pictures came on board to release the film and titled it as Split.

Shyamalan conceived of the idea for Split years before he actually wrote the screenplay. He explained, "In this case I had written the character a while ago, and I had written out a few scenes of it, so I even had dialogue written out, which is really unusual for me. It sat there for a long time, and I really don't have a clear reason why I didn't pull the trigger earlier. But this felt like the perfect time to do it, with the type of movies I'm doing now, and the type of tones I am interested in – humor and suspense." The character of Kevin had been in one of the early drafts of Shyamalan's Unbreakable, but he had pulled the character out, stating there were balancing issue at that time. With Split, he brought in some of the scenes he had written for Unbreakable around Kevin. The film ends with the appearance of Bruce Willis' character, David Dunn, from Unbreakable and making a comment in reference to the previous film, placing Unbreakable and Split within the same narrative universe. Shyamalan had been very secretive of Willis' involvement in Split, removing the final scene from the film for test audiences. Shyamalan said he would like to make a movie that would combine Unbreakable and Split in the future.

Principal photography on the film began on November 11, 2015 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Reshoots occurred in June 2016. During post-production, Sterling K. Brown's role as Dr. Fletcher's neighbor was cut from the film.

Release

Split had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 26, 2016. It also screened at the AFI Fest on November 15, 2016. The film was theatrically released on January 20, 2017 in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

Box office

As of January 22, 2017, Split has grossed $42.9 million in the United States and Canada and $5.8 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $48.7 million, against a production budget of $10 million.

In North America, the film was released alongside the openings of xXx: Return of Xander Cage and The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, and the wide expansions of The Founder and 20th Century Women, and was initially expected to gross $20–25 million from 3,038 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $2 million from its Thursday night previews at 2,295 theaters, doubling the $1 million made by Shyamalan's The Visit in 2015, and $14.6 million on its first day, increasing weekend estimates to $30–37 million. It ended up opening to $40.2 million, finishing first at the box office and marking the highest non-X-Men debut for McAvoy.

Critical response

Split received generally positive reviews from critics, with McAvoy's performance being praised. On the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 76%, based on 150 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Split serves as a dramatic tour de force for James McAvoy in multiple roles – and finds writer-director M. Night Shyamalan returning resoundingly to thrilling form." Metacritic reports an average score 64 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Jordan Hoffman of The Guardian gave the film four stars out of five, stating it to be a "masterful blend of Hitchcock, horror and therapy session." Also writing for The Guardian, Steve Rose had strong praise for McAvoy's role, saying that "he does a fine and fearless job of selling his character's varied personae." He commended his ability to switch personalities in one scene toward the end of the film, saying: "It's a little like the T-1000 at the end of Terminator 2. But there are no special effects here, just acting."

Controversy

Split garnered controversy for its alleged stigmatization of mental illness. The Australian mental health charity SANE stated, "Films like this are going to reinforce a false stereotypical notion that people living with complex mental illnesses are inherently dangerous and violent."

Possible sequel

Shyamalan expressed hope for a second installment following Split, saying, "I hope a third Unbreakable film happens. The answer is yes. I'm just such a wimp sometimes. I don't know what's going to happen when I go off in my room, a week after this film opens, to write the script. But I'm going to start writing. I have a really robust outline, which is pretty intricate. But now the standards for my outlines are higher. I need to know I've won already. I'm almost there but I'm not quite there."

External links

• Official website
• Split at IMDb