A man with 23 personalities

Emmalee Scheibe, Staff Writer

Warning. Spoiler alerts.

More times than not I don’t want to waste my money going to see another “thriller” movie in theaters, if I am more than sure I will just be bored. However, “Split” was different altogether.

If you haven’t heard that “Split” has been on the number one chart for the third week in a row, then you must be living under a rock.

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, “Split” captivates the audience while bringing awareness to mental disorders that are rarely talked about. James McAvoy, who plays Kevin, a man with 23 personalities, does a great job portraying someone with multiple personality disorder and how it can affect their lives.

This thriller captures the audience by wasting no time getting to the point when three girls are kidnapped, by Kevin’s personality Dennis, within the first five minutes of the movie.

He kidnapped the girls to feed “the beast,” which becomes his 24th personality. The girls need to be “impure” for him. They need to have never felt pain and have never suffered. He meant to kidnap only Claire and Marcia, but also ended up kidnapping Casey because she happened to be with them at the same time.

When Kevin transformed into his 24th personality, “the beast,” his body also changed with him. He became incredibly strong and near the end took two gunshots to the chest, but was not killed.

The audience is also shown how different personalities can result in different body reactions. One of his personalities, Jade, has diabetes, while the rest do not. Even though Kevin is a male, some of his personalities are women.

Overall, I thought the movie was different and nothing like I had ever seen before. It’s very rare to see movies that bring so much awareness to mental disorders in such an interesting way.