SECOND SCREEN
potential prey for the childtraffickers and paedophiles who roam the streets. The sense of peril and Saroo’s fear are properly and impressively palpable.
But it all falls ever-soslightly apart after we jump forward and the action switches to Australia. There’s nothing wrong with Dev Patel’s performance as the by-now grown-up Saroo, but the pace slows, the plotting becomes cumbersome, and casting the distinguished likes of Nicole Kidman and David Wenham as Saroo’s adoptive parents never quite pays off. The ending is predictably lovely but it might have been lovelier still if we’d got there faster.
In recent years, the career of M Night Shyamalan – yes, he of Sixth Sense and Unbreakable fame – has often appeared in near-terminal decline. But he returns to something resembling form with Split (15A) thanks to an ongoing tie-up with horror producer Jason Blum, and a virtuoso performance from James McAvoy as the creep who kidnaps three teenage girls and holds them prisoner in a cellar. But if it’s a man holding them captive, who is the woman’s voice they can hear?
There are echoes of 10 Cloverfield Lane, along with a hatful of films once the central twist – that the kidnapper has multiple personalities – is revealed. For a second or two, the film teeters on the edge of a now-unfashionable genre sleaziness but pulls back just in time.
McAvoy has an absolute ball, Betty Buckley is spot-on as his over-dedicated psychiatrist and Morgan star Anya Taylor-Joy definitely catches the eye as the most resourceful of the three girls.
Shyamalan is hardly breaking new ground and his story probably goes at least one twist too far. But he’s having fun and not taking himself too seriously, as you’ll discover – rather deliciously – as the final credits roll.
Matthew Bond