After spending a bunch of years playing the telepathic Charles Xavier of the X-Men, James McAvoy is taking on a character with a totally different set of mental issues. He'll get to show his range in Split, the new thriller from M. Night Shyamalan, playing a character with a whopping 23 different personas.
Also starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Jessica Sula, and Haley Lu Richardson, Split centers on Kevin, whose dissociative identity disorder manifests in unpredictable ways, like kidnapping three girls and holding them hostage. The trailer, much like the synopsis, reveals just enough without giving too much away. And as we learned from the strong early buzz out of Fantastic Fest, there's a lot more Shyamalan is keeping under wraps. Perhaps one of his infamous "twists"?
While the mental divisions of those with dissociative identity disorder have long fascinated and eluded science, it is believed that some can also manifest unique physical attributes for each personality, a cognitive and physiological prism within a single being.
Though Kevin (James McAvoy) has evidenced 23 personalities to his trusted psychiatrist, Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley), there remains one still submerged who is set to materialize and dominate all the others. Compelled to abduct three teenage girls led by the willful, observant Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy, The Witch), Kevin reaches a war for survival among all of those contained within him—as well as everyone around him—as the walls between his compartments shatter apart.
Split opens January 20th 2017.
