SPLIT (15)
THREE’S company, 23’s an intimidating crowd in writer-director M Night Shyamalan’s intriguing thriller about a trio of teenagers who are abducted in broad daylight and held hostage by a thirty-something oddball exhibiting multiple-personality disorder.
The abductor’s distinct personas supplant one another without warning, establishing a tense psychological battle for internal supremacy, which runs parallel to the hostages’ life-or-death fight.
As dramatic set-ups go, Split is ripe with suspense, and Shyamalan’s script veers in unexpected directions.
A flashback framing device to a childhood hunting trip is far more predictable and the twisted morality of closing scenes, which attempt to justify who deserves to die, leaves a slightly bitter taste in the mouth.
Far sweeter is Glasgow-born lead actor James McAvoy’s tour-de-force portrayal of an emotionally damaged man at war with himself.
In one powerhouse scene, he ricochets between several personalities, capturing with aplomb the fierce battle raging inside his head.
For her birthday celebration at a local restaurant, student Claire Benoit (Haley Lu Richardson) invites her classmates, including best friend Marcia (Jessica Sula) and creepy outcast, Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy).
On the way home, a socially awkward misfit called Kevin Crumb (McAvoy) overpowers Claire’s father (Neal Huff ) and kidnaps the three girls, spiriting them away to a bunker.
The teenagers woozily regain consciousness from chloroform fumes in a cell. Casey urges caution and the hostages discover that Kevin exhibits 23 distinct personalities.
Split is a return to confident form for Shymalan, who has never quite lived up to the dizzying promise of his Oscar-nominated third feature The Sixth Sense.
Admittedly his picture falls short of the suffocating tension of yesteryear’s abduction thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane, but it’s an entertaining thrill ride.