As I watched trailers for M. Night Shyamalan’s newest movie, “Split,” I couldn’t help but say a little prayer in hopes it would be Shyamalan’s saving grace. Coming as no surprise, it was absolutely not.

“Split” is a thriller based around Kevin Wendell Crumb, a maintenance worker at the Philadelphia Zoo who suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) where he lives through 23 various personalities. We join Crumb when he kidnaps three teenage girls and learn about him as the girls do.

James McAvoy plays Crumb, and he is truly the only saving grace, acting without fear. His portrayal of a 9-year-old boy named Hedwig stood out the most. Using a childish lisp, large smile, and frequent use of the words “et cetera,” his portrayal is thoroughly developed and entertaining. As an actor, he utilizes voice, face, body and mind to become each personality. McAvoy portrays Dennis as well, a solemn, angry man with OCD, and Patricia, an extremely feminine, maternal woman. Each mannerism acted out by each personality is fit and thought out perfectly yet appears so naturally. McAvoy becomes each personality in a way that is electrifying and exciting to the audience, unlike anything I have seen before.

The other actors were mediocre, but I couldn’t determine if it was the writing, their acting or the cinematography that had me looking away. For the majority of the film, the frames were so up close to the actor that it was almost sickening. It felt me leaving clouded and overwhelmed. There were even shots when the actor’s head was cut off, leaving just their mouth and entire body as they were conversing. I understand being creative, but not in unnecessary ways that harm the film.

Shyamalan morphs together the supernatural and science, representing logic through Dr. Fletcher, Crumb’s therapist. Throughout the film, Dr. Fletcher fights for those with DID that she has spent years observing, attempting to shine a light on the disorder to others in the psychology community.

In the film, she speaks at a convention, sharing her findings that the human body can have different physical and mental conditions with each personality. Dr. Fletcher believes the multiple identities may put those with DID above a typical human because they use more of their brain.

The strange mix of reasoning and supernatural is an interesting choice by Shyamalan, yet there is nothing left to the mind. When it comes to directing, Shyamalan can be praised slightly. When it comes to writing, I believe it is undeveloped. Multiple times throughout the movie, the lines sounded as far from reality as possible, making me cringe and feel sympathy for the actors, knowing no matter how well they delivered the lines, they would still sound unnatural.

This happens when Casey, the main kidnappee, reacts to the other two girls when they plan out an attack to escape. She refuses to help, telling the girls that they have it so easy, they think they can expect a certain outcome, but it’s not always that simple. In this case, when being kidnapped, you’d think somebody would do whatever they can to escape, but instead, Shyamalan has her give up. These lines also foreshadow the ending of the movie in the most unsubtle way.

As a whole, the plot is an extremely interesting and unique idea. It carries out the idea that without experience, without hardships, a human is undeveloped. I believe that through the use of symbolism, this message could have been dissected and understood in a profound way. Shyamalan obviously disagrees with me because he has his characters state exactly what the message is and explains the entire plot through his writing, leaving the audience with only one simple understanding.

For those who don’t like to think, this movie is spot on.