‘Split’ creates real-life concerns for audience

Normally scary movies are not my favorite (I’m more of a romantic comedy kind of girl), but I do enjoy a good psychological thriller. Leave the constant blood and gore behind, and give me an obscure plot. “Split” did just that.
An almost unrecognizable James McAvoy gives a brilliant performance as the lead character, Kevin, who is first introduced to the audience as Dennis. Dennis is just one of the 23 identities that Kevin assumes. McAvoy’s ability to not only switch voices, but also body language, and transform from identity to identity was key in making the movie so eerily realistic.
The film wastes no time in setting up the plot. Within the first 10 minutes Dennis kidnaps and detains three teenage girls in his residence, a creepy dungeon-like area with no windows. Two of the girls are good friends, the third is an outcast who goes to school with them. Right away anticipation hits you in the gut; will these girls make it out alive or not?
Next we see McAvoy as Barry, a fashion designer, going to talk with his elderly therapist, Karen Fletcher, played by Betty Buckley. Fletcher has been seeing Kevin for a long time and knows the characteristics of all his identities. She easily picks up on Barry’s obsessive straightening during the session, which tips her off that it is actually Dennis, who suffers with obsessive compulsive disorder, pretending to be Barry at the session. This causes concern with Fletcher, but she has no idea what Dennis has done yet.
In a video conference Fletcher conducts other psychologists, she notes that people who are diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder can have drastically different physical and mental capabilities with each identity. For example, Dennis has OCD, another of his identities has diabetes, while another has the intelligence and mannerisms of a 9-year-old. She believes patients with this disorder have tapped into a whole section of brain activity that we didn’t know was possible.
This was the most interesting discovery to me of the whole movie. What if this is true in real-life cases of dissociative identity disorder? What if the patients’ brains aren’t malfunctioning, but rather functioning at a completely different level than what we credit as “normal.” It leaves an endless list of what-ifs and unknowns that I now ponder the possibility of. It’s mind-numbing to wonder if a person that gives himself a shot of insulin daily under one personality, could then survive perfectly fine without it under another. We’ve all heard of the saying “mind over matter.” How far can one go simply by force of the mind?
Another twist we come to find is that Kevin was abused as a child by his mother. The trauma seems to be what has sent him into this state of peril and the assumption of 22 other personalities. Oddly enough, the outcast girl he has kidnapped, Casey, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, shares a common ground with Kevin here. Through a series of Casey’s flashbacks we see that her uncle has been abusing her since she was a child. The flashbacks are subtle, just hinting enough to let us know of Casey’s unfortunate encounters. This sort of bond between the abused seems to have given Casey a little more insight than the other girls have into what they are up against.
“The broken are the more evolved,” one of Kevin’s identities said.
Dennis, along with two other identities, Patricia and Hedwig, are the most unfavorable of Kevin’s personalities. They have undesirable characteristics that deep down Kevin is ashamed of. Collectively the antagonist group is called “the Horde.” The Horde has managed to stifle the nicer identities from “coming to the light.” The Horde is who has been watching over the girls and preparing them. But preparing them for what? The Horde believes a Beast is coming soon, and the girls are to be a sort of offering to it. Dennis describes the Beast to Fletcher but says he has never seen it. Fletcher is torn whether to believe there is any beast, or if Kevin is about to assume yet another personality.
The possibility of a beast definitely adds an extra scare factor. The Horde has not done any real physical harm to the girls thus far, so they don’t seem to be an immediate threat. But the Beast seems to be the Horde’s ultimate leader, so if he is real, they need to escape before this creature with “rhinoceros skin” makes his debut.
Can Casey’s survival skills and insight help the girls find a way out? Does Fletcher figure out what Dennis is up to in time? Is the Beast real? Is there a way to cure Kevin? You’ll be on the edge of your seat asking all these questions if you have the nerve to watch the film. I highly recommend viewing it in the theater if you can catch it before it’s gone. There’s nothing quite like a big screen and surround-sound to add to the chilling suspense!