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This spine-chilling horror movie splits open the human brain and unravels its complex psychology that promises to have cinema-goers clutching the edges of their seats.
The film focuses on a man named Kevin Wendall Crumb (James McAvoy) who suffers from dissociative identity disorder due to an abusive childhood. He has 23 split personalities that wait their turn to step out ‘in the light’ and take control of his body.
One of his secretive personalities, dastardly Dennis the paedophile, kidnaps three girls and locks them in a cellar under a zoo in Philadelphia. Kevin regularly meets with his psychologist, Dr Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley) who becomes disturbed to find emails from Barry - his dominant personality - requesting emergency sessions.
While Barry AKA Kevin is attending his sessions, the kidnapped girls, Claire, Marcia and Casey (played by Anya Taylor-Joy who puts in a strong performance), start plotting a way to escape and attack their captor.
The good doctor begins to notice discrepancies in ‘Barry’ and his behaviour and finds out about the emergence of a 24th personality called ‘The Beast’. Tricky times for the girls lay ahead. Split portrays the stigma that exists around people suffering from dissociative identity disorder that often grants them the label of being a threat to others.
While this isn’t always necessarily true, director M. Night Shyamalan’s vision and portrayal of one man’s pain and the 24 different ways he attempts to shield himself from it, is interesting, to say the least.
The director famed for Unbreakable (2000) cleverly gives Split a very Roomlike (the movie that won actress Brie Lawson a ‘best actress Oscar) undertone, making the girls and the audience feel as trapped as Kevin does with his pain and illness.
There are no CGI effects used when The Beast appears which adds to the scare factor. All this movie needs are James McAvoy’s brilliant acting skills, transforming from one personality to another.
The entire movie is a foreboding experience … you just know that things are about to escalate from bad to worse. You want to close your eyes but you can’t.
Now showing: Cineco, Seef II, Dana, Mukta A2, Novo, Wadi Al Sail, Saar
