SPLIT : Wednesday 18th January 2017.

I was lucky enough to catch an advance screening earlier this week of M.Night Shyamalan's psychological thriller, 'SPLIT' one week ahead of its Australian release on Thursday 26th January. Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Shyamalan this is described as a psychological horror film, but for me it's fits more in the thriller domain and certainly is edge of the seat stuff as the story progresses. The film costs US$10M to make and represents a return to form for the Writer/Director following 2015's successful found footage horror offering 'The Visit' which cost just US$5M and returned US$99M and was well received by Critics. In between time however, we had to endure 'After Earth' in 2013, 'The Last Airbender' in 2010, 'The Happening' in 2008, and 'Lady in the Water' in 2006. Before these of course we had his breakout films which were more highly regarded than his latter day offerings - 'The Sixth Sense' in 1999, 'Unbreakable' in 2000, 'Signs' in 2002 and 'The Village' in 2004. In 'Split' Shyamalan harks back to his early work with suspense, thrills, dark humour, gripping performances from his lead Actors and his trademark surprises that will keep you guessing as the credits roll.

The film kicks off in a fast food restaurant where a bunch of teenage girls are wrapping up celebrating a birthday party. Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) and Marcia (Jessica Sula) are wanting to go home with Dad who refuses to leave outsider Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) alone without a lift home. He offers to drive her home as its only a short distance out of his way, and so in the car park he is loading up his boot in broad daylight and the three girls climb inside the car. A few moments pass, and into the drivers seat gets a stranger that none of them have seen before. Before you know it he sprays a chemical into each of the girls faces that instantly renders them unconscious. Dad is nowhere to be seen. The unknown captor drives off with the three girls.

Later we see the girls captor carrying them into a room that is to become their prison cell. It is bare brick, three made up camp beds, and a gleaming white en suite bathroom. There are no windows and a single heavily bolted wooden door. Through a crack in the door they can see that there is an adjacent room with just one entry door and they can hear a voice on the other side. The door unlocks and in walks Dennis (James McAvoy) - a well built stocky man, obviously strong, a little nervous, but with a commanding presence. He establishes some ground rules, and leaves. The girls meanwhile contemplate their fate - as Claire seeks out a plan to break out of her prison confines using the teenage karate lessons learned by Marcia to overcome their captor. Casey meanwhile seems content to wait and see what unwinds - to watch and observe until the time is right to take decisive action.

Meanwhile various characters come and go - all of them played out by James McAvoy who at heart is Kevin Wendell Crumb suffering from dissociative identity disorder whereby he frequently exhibits the personality traits of any one of 23 alternate personalities. As these characters manifest themselves they can be dangerous, monstrous, creepy, funny, harmless, young, old, male, female.

Whilst we don't see Kevin until close to the end when his state of mind is explained, we do meet a well to do English matriarch with sinister overtones (Patricia), a nine year old simpleton lad who likes dancing to Kanye West (Hedwig), an OCD caretaker who is fastidious about cleanliness and hygiene (Dennis), and a gay fashion designer (Barry). All of these personalities are played out expertly by McAvoy using items of clothing as his only props to suit the personality he is portraying whilst his facial expressions, mannerisms and voice convey the mood and tone of the character he is inhibiting.

Meanwhile, Claire hatches a plan to escape through the roof of their prison cell and does so by means of ventilation ducting just wide enough for her to scale through. She exits in a nearby room and is promptly recaptured, and for her troubles is locked up in a storeroom all alone, feeling desperately sorry for herself and fearing the worst. Then Marcia has a go when she and Casey are invited to the kitchen for dinner. She slams a wooden chair into the turned back of one of Kevin's female alternates and makes a bolt for it, only to be recaptured in a dead end room from which there is no exit. She too is banished to another empty storeroom to contemplate her fate.

While all of this is going on Kevin's more sinister personalities are increasingly requesting daily emergency sessions with his analyst Dr. Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley) who has been treating Kevin for a number of years and has met just about all of his personalities. She specialises in the field of DID and has been chipping away to gain a full understanding of what makes each of his 23 personalities tick. It is here that we are introduced to the possibility of a 24th personality emerging - known as 'The Beast', that will dominate over the other 23, with his physical and mental strength. No one has yet seen The Beast in manifested form, but the other personalities know that he is coming, and when he does . . .

In micro-flashbacks too we catch short little bursts of what made Casey the young woman she is today. On hunting trips aged five or six when Casey (Izzie Coffey) first learned to shoot a shotgun and kill a deer under the tutelage of her father and Uncle, through to her fathers premature death and her being raised by her abusive Uncle. These life lessons as young as she is, have taught her to be patient, to give nothing away, and to play along with her captor gaining what little confidence and trust she can along the away. And in the end, it pays off as she emerges the heroine of the piece while her two friends succumb.

Dr. Fletcher becomes increasingly alarmed by Kevin's demands for sessions on a now daily basis by sending multiple e-mails at all hours of the day and night. She keeps digging away at times uncertain of which character she is addressing, but always placating the personality with kind words, generous compliments, and her own engaging character. All the while the tension mounts between them, only adding to the suspicion between the two parties.

Eventually 'The Beast' manifests itself and it is everything and more that Kevin and his various personalities had imagined. Domineering, powerful, almost superhuman, and definitely to be feared. In the final analysis there are some gruesome casualties along the way, but Casey survives with the help of a shotgun and some carefully aimed shots from the relatively safe confines of a locked cage. Whilst she survives, so does The Beast who we see treating his own wounds in some derelict home having escaped his own underground lair. He morphs from one personality to another having conversations with himself about the state of his shot up body, and what to do next.

As Casey is rescued we see the exact location above ground where Kevin housed his deep underground quarters in which he lived, held his prisoners captive and how he was able to move about relatively easily. There is a metaphor here for the behaviours exhibited by some of Kevin's personalities too. In a final scene where breaking news reveals the ordeal that Casey went through and the casualties of that experience, we cut to a diner and the dialogue between two patrons harks back to an earlier film where the antagonist is committed to an institution for the criminally insane, drawing comparisons between that character and the one of Kevin Wendell Crumb.

McAvoy carries this film with his seamless portrayal of a myriad of dangerous, unhinged, twisted personalities easily showcasing his awards worthy talents. Here too the storytelling and Direction of Shyamalan marks his welcome comeback with an original and compelling story, and those trademarks we have come to expect from his earlier works especially. See this on the big screen for the larger than life opening credits sequence, and the expert personalities adopted by each of McAvoy's alternate persona's - this film belongs to him, and he clearly relished the multiple characters the role presented him with.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-