Three teen-aged girls are kidnapped from the parking lot of a restaurant and held captive by a man (James McAvoy) with dissociative identity disorder, 23 distinct personalities to be exact, who converses with his psychiatrist (Betty Buckley) while trying both to cultivate and ward off the monstrous, superhuman 24th temperament that is quickly emerging. After years of poor reviews, misguided genre exercises, and big budget flops, Split is a mostly welcomed return to form for M. Night Shyamalan thanks largely to an amusing, winning performance from McAvoy, in a turn that could have easily been laughable, Anya Taylor-Joy's presence as the focal victim, and the subplot involving Buckley. The finale is unsatisfying and too simply arrived at, as is a post credits cameo which is supposedly leading to a tie-in feature involving one of the director's previous films.
*** out of ****
