SPLIT

James McAvoy     Betty Buckley     Anya Taylor-Joy     Jessica Sula     Haley Lu Richardson

       About as creepy as it can get in portraying a mentally ill person’s delusions.  James McAvoy is at the height of his performances in the depiction of someone with multiple personalities.  Here, he can be tough, mean, simple minded, and artsy, depending on which identity is “up.”  He does this mostly with facial expressions and body language, which makes his performance more impressive.  The psychiatrist treating him is pretty well portrayed and very well acted by Buckley as Dr. Fletcher.  How factual the representation of dissociative identity disorder is, I can’t really judge because I don’t have experience with that diagnosis, but it “rang true” from what I know.

        My issue with this and other horror movies is that they linger a bit too long on moments of tension and tend to drag them out long after they’re plausible.  Most notable is the ending—which is not really an ending—in which a character has a chance to do just that (end things) and doesn’t. Another issue is that every scene with the women shows them to be fragile, easily rattled, and unable to take action.  The two girls abducted with Casey (Taylor-Joy), Marcia (Sula) and Claire (Richardson), really got on my nerves with the panicky breathing and hysterical behavior.  And although Dr. Fletcher is portrayed as a very competent therapist in most of the story, her portrayal toward the end is inconsistent with how she is portrayed professionally in the beginning.

          The story begins with a father urging his daughter and her friend to be compassionate toward an odd, retiring classmate, Casey, and offer her a ride home.  But just as they are getting in the car, the father acknowledges someone approaching, and suddenly we see the stranger driving the car rather than the father.  This stranger is abducting the three girls.  He is “Kevin” (McAvoy) who will rain terror on them in the coming days.

          Shyamalan has had an uneven career, with some of his work praised (Sixth Sense and perhaps Signs) and much of it criticized (Lady in the Water).  He is good at weaving a story that keeps the viewer mesmerized and interested in the esoteric, but at times he gets too caught up in the supernatural.  Here, he is good at introducing the main character with 23 personalities slowly, so the viewer’s reaction may be, “Is that the same person we just saw?”  And then the disorder we’re seeing becomes clear.

          Another plus is Shyamalan fleshing out Casey’s character so that her current behavior and deportment are well accounted for by events in her childhood.

A mostly well crafted thriller that will make your skin crawl while you admire the star.

Grade:  C+                                    By Donna R. Copeland

THE VISIT

Kathryn Hahn     Olivia DeJonge     Ed Oxenbould     Peter McRobbie     Deanna Dunagen

           M. Night Shyamalan says in an interview (Bill Desowitz of “Thompson on Hollywood”) that The Visit will be his comeback film.  It could very well be.  I was pleasantly/scarily surprised at its force and power to engage the audience on many different levels.  Along with Shyamalan’s work in writing and directing, much of its appeal is owed to the two young actors, Ed Oxenbould and Olivia Delonge, who are phenomenal. 

           They’re both precocious—and are supposed to be in their roles—which could have sounded like children mouthing words written by adults.  But these two look like they had come up with the lines themselves.  Olivia’s character, Becca, throws out phrases like, “We don’t know their temperaments or proclivities” and “Don’t touch it; let it organically swing”, plus many technical terms of movie-making (she’s filming a documentary of hers and Tyler’s visit to their grandparents); and Tyler can rap, sounding a lot like Eminem.  He also had a wicked sense of humor.

           The film is a delightful combination of horror and comedy, so the story effectively swings smoothly back and forth between the two moods, with some tenderness and warm feelings mixed in.  Their mother (Hahn) left home when she was 19 to be with an older man, much to her parents’ dismay, and they have not communicated in the 15 years since.  Now the mother is single, and badly in need of a vacation with her beau.  The kids have never met their grandparents, and they are eager to go and want to give their mother some adult time.  So it’s agreeable to everyone concerned.

           The initial time with the grandparents is mixed; Nana is a great cook, and Pop Pop is good natured and helpful.  Aging signs are obvious, which the kids can understand, but eventually things start getting really bizarre, and you wonder what will happen to them by the end of their week’s stay.  This is a horror movie after all.

           The script is intelligent in setting up information for later scenes.  For instance, there is an account of eight year-old Tyler standing frozen during a football game when he is supposed to be making an easy tackle.  Toward the end of the film, you see him standing as if frozen, and you remember the previous account.  A theme about holding onto anger and not forgiving comes up in the beginning and at the end with two characters. 

           Filming techniques used to enhance the eeriness of the story include dark scenes with mysterious or alarming sounds, Becca’s hand-hand video camera, and her documentary pictures, which sometimes serve as “found footage.”  Finally, I really like the sudden twist at the end, which some have found fault with, but I thought was a perfect conclusion, once again set up in earlier scenes, but not really preparing you.

Final Thought:  A good horror film with refreshing humor and clever characters.

Grade:  B+                        By Donna R. Copeland