The Twist in Split is That There Was No Twist
Split. Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
When Split hit theaters in 2016, it was a little bit of a torpedo. This thing was launched by M. Night Shyamalan with almost no warning and it sailed undetected through the waters of Hollywood until it blew up in our faces and everybody was like “Hey this shit is awesome!” which admittedly is not the typical reaction when a torpedo blows up in your face.
What made Split awesome? Well, for nerds it was the Bruce Willis cameo at the very end that basically announced it as a sequel to Unbreakable. This was a really low-risk venture and almost a no-brainer in retrospect. It cost them nothing to tack Willis in at the end; if the movie was good and a success, that little bit of tomfoolery would guarantee that it would be boosted to the next level and demand a sequel. If it was another M. Night Bomb, then they lost nothing by slipping him in at the end because only a handful of nerds would have noticed anyway. The genius of Jason Blum on full display there, ladies and gentlemen.
But for non-nerds, it was just a good horror/thriller film. I am not really that big of a James McAvoy fan, but nobody can deny that he gives a tour de force in Split, leaping from one character to the next in a freakin marathon race to chew the scenery. The film lives and dies by his acting, and fortunately it’s a pretty great performance. The other thing that made the film good, for me anyway, was that is subverted expectations by just telling a pretty straightforward story. Whenever you go into an M. Night film, you are always looking for the twist. Often, this takes you out of the movie because everything that happens you are constantly wondering “OK, so how is he going to fuck this up by introducing some stupid ass twist?”
I kept expecting Split to fall into the same trap, revealing that actually this was all a fantasy in Casey’s head or some shit like that, which would have been a shame because I kind of liked the weird little split personality story with some supernatural undertones that was developing. How’s he gonna fuck this up with a twist, was a thought that kept floating in the background as I watched. And then, the film just turned out to be exactly what it purported to be - a suspenseful thriller anchored by a tour de force of acting about a guy with split personalities laced with some supernatural undertones.
That was it. That was the story the film told you it was going to tell, and then it told that story and nothing more (until the cameo at the end). And it was told well! And to me, once the credits rolled, that was the greatest twist of all.
