Split arrived in early 2017 as the film that confirmed Shyamalan’s comeback was real. After a string of poorly received projects, the director returned to his strengths: small-scale, character-driven suspense built around a high-concept premise and anchored by a commanding central performance. The concept is straightforward: a man with dissociative identity disorder kidnaps three teenage girls, and the girls must navigate his shifting personalities to survive. The execution is anything but straightforward, because James McAvoy turns the role into one of the most ambitious performances of the decade.
The film was a massive commercial success, earning $278 million worldwide on a $9 million budget, and received generally positive reviews that centered almost entirely on McAvoy’s work. Audiences responded enthusiastically, and the film’s final moments generated the kind of audible audience reaction that Shyamalan had been chasing since The Sixth Sense. The comeback narrative was irresistible, and the film delivered enough to support it.
James McAvoy’s Twenty-Three Faces
McAvoy’s performance is the film, full stop. He plays multiple distinct personalities with such physical and vocal precision that you genuinely forget you’re watching one actor. The transitions between personalities happen in real time, often within a single shot, and McAvoy makes each shift convincing through changes in posture, expression, vocal pattern, and energy. The nine-year-old Hedwig, the fastidious Patricia, and the imposing Dennis are all fully realized characters, each with their own relationship to the camera and the other characters.
The performance works because McAvoy commits to each personality with equal seriousness. He doesn’t play any of them for laughs, even when the shifts create moments of dark humor. The result is a portrayal that generates genuine unease because the audience can never be sure which personality they’re dealing with or what that personality’s agenda might be. The threat constantly reshapes itself.
Anya Taylor-Joy, in an early role, brings a quiet strength to Casey that distinguishes her from the other captives. Her backstory, revealed through flashbacks, adds a dimension to the survival narrative that gives the film its emotional core. Taylor-Joy’s ability to convey intelligence and resourcefulness through stillness rather than action complements McAvoy’s kinetic energy effectively.
Shyamalan’s direction is lean and confident. He keeps the film largely confined to a few locations, using the basement setting to create claustrophobia without relying on the horror genre’s usual tricks. The tension comes from conversation and character rather than from jump scares or violence, and the film’s patience in building toward its climax shows a director who trusts his material.
The Mental Health Question
The film’s portrayal of dissociative identity disorder drew significant criticism from mental health advocates, and that criticism has merit. The narrative positions Kevin’s condition as the source of a supernatural threat, which reinforces harmful stereotypes about people with mental illness being dangerous. The film uses the disorder as a horror device, which, regardless of how well-crafted the execution is, contributes to stigma.
Shyamalan frames the condition as potentially giving Kevin access to abilities that go beyond the psychological, which further removes the portrayal from any relationship with actual mental illness. This is a creative choice that serves the thriller elements but comes at a cost to responsible representation.
The captive characters beyond Casey are underdeveloped. The other two girls serve primarily as victims, and their comparative passivity makes them feel less like characters than like narrative devices. The film would benefit from investing even slightly more in their perspectives, which would broaden the dramatic scope and raise the stakes of the captivity scenario.
The third act’s escalation into territory that moves beyond psychological thriller can feel jarring for viewers who were engaged with the film’s more grounded elements. Shyamalan pushes the premise toward a revelation that recontextualizes everything, and while fans of his broader work appreciate the connection, it can feel like a different film emerging from the one you’ve been watching.
Shyamalan’s Return to Form
Split matters in Shyamalan’s career as proof that his core strengths never left. The ability to build suspense from minimal resources, to find the uncanny in confined spaces, and to draw remarkable performances from his cast are all on display here. The film demonstrated that his commercial instincts were intact and that audiences would still show up for his particular brand of genre filmmaking.
The film’s broader cultural impact is tied to its final moment, which recontextualizes the entire project and connects it to Shyamalan’s earlier work. That connection energized his fan base and set up the next phase of his career, making Split function as both a standalone thriller and a bridge between past and future projects.
Should You Watch Split?
If you appreciate actor-driven thrillers and want to see a performer working at the absolute peak of their abilities, Split is worth your time for McAvoy’s performance alone. The thriller mechanics are solid, the atmosphere is effectively claustrophobic, and Shyamalan’s direction is disciplined and engaging.
Skip it if the use of mental illness as a horror device is a deal-breaker for you, or if you need all characters to be equally developed to stay invested. The film’s strengths are narrow but intense: it’s a McAvoy vehicle first and everything else second.
The Verdict on Split
Split is a film that lives and dies by one performance, and that performance is extraordinary. James McAvoy does something genuinely difficult and makes it look effortless, shifting between personalities with a precision that commands every frame he’s in. Shyamalan wraps that performance in a taut, efficiently constructed thriller that never overstays its welcome. The mental health concerns are real and worth acknowledging, and the supporting characters could use more depth. But as a showcase for an actor at the height of his powers and a director rediscovering his instincts, Split delivers exactly what it promises.