Famous for works like Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and the Super Mario movies, Anya Taylor-Joy is one of Hollywood’s fastest-rising stars. Her versatility has landed her roles in franchises like Dune, and she even led The Queen’s Gambit, one of Netflix‘s most successful series. However, her journey started somewhere else, and that was in scary movies.
After a breakout role in Robert Eggers’ The Witch, the actor brought to life a very memorable “final girl.” In the film – which is now available on streaming – Taylor-Joy plays a modern damsel in distress without the stereotypes made famous in most horror movies. Instead, she’s a smart survivor in a standalone movie that segued into superhero territory when viewers least expected it.
How ‘Split’ Became a Superhero Sequel at the Finish Line
The following contains spoilers for Split.M. Night Shyamalan’s Split follows Casey Cooke (Taylor-Joy), a young teen who is kidnapped, along with her friends, by a stranger. The kidnapper (James McAvoy) identifies himself as Kevin, but Casey soon discovers that more than a dozen other personalities are also fighting to control his body. The Beast is the most dangerous of them all, and Casey soon realizes that escaping Kevin’s clutches means confronting this terrifying personality before it can fully emerge. She says enough is enough and discovers a way to stand up to the multiple personalities, which arguably make up one of cinema’s most unpredictable and memorable villains.
Despite its value as a solid standalone thriller (after The Sixth Sense, it’s one of Shyamalan’s most celebrated films), Split pulls a last-minute gimmick that shifts it into another genre and reveals that audiences are watching a franchise they didn’t know existed until then. In the final scene, it becomes an actual sequel to Unbreakable, adding Bruce Willis’ David Dunn in a last-minute cameo, and officially setting the stage for the director’s final film in the trilogy, Glass.
James McAvoy’s Performance in ‘Split’ Is One of the Best in Shyamalan’s Filmography
Although Split put Anya Taylor-Joy on the map as a rising young star, the film is James McAvoy’s showcase of his range. By giving life to a handful of personalities, the X-Men veteran was able to demonstrate the full extent of his versatility. One moment he is an endearing, innocent child, and the next, he becomes a cold-blooded monster. And yes, he makes it believable.
McAvoy steals every scene in the movie, at times overshadowing Taylor-Joy. Despite the performances of Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense, Abigail Breslin in Signs, and Bryce Dallas Howard in The Village, it’s hard to top what McAvoy did in Split to contribute to Shyamalan’s filmography. When Split was released, it received critical acclaim, and many singled out McAvoy’s performance as a standout. On Rotten Tomatoes, Split holds a 79% score from both critics and audiences, and several reviews mention McAvoy as one of the reasons why the film works so well. The 2016 release was also a major blockbuster for Shyamalan, as it grossed over $278 million against a $9 million production budget.
Split is one of several thrillers that arrived on Netflix on October 1, as part of the streamer’s library expansion for Halloween. Other titles added to the catalog include The Silence of the Lambs, Lake Placid, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Psycho, and Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense.
- Release Date
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January 19, 2017
- Runtime
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117 minutes
