Glass

Glass 2019

Written and directed by M Night Shyamalan who has had a hit and miss career. He’s directed amongst others The Visit, Unbreakable, The 6th Sense (hit, big hit, monster hit) but also The Happening, The last Airbender and After Earth (miss, huge miss and so far off the mark he couldn’t actually have been aiming)

This is the third film from a shared universe which started in 2000 with (the much underrated on release, but quietly picked up a cult following) Unbreakable, then revisited in 2016 with the excellent (and one of the best films of the year in my opinion) Split.

Set three weeks after Split We join David Dunn (Bruce Willis) as he continues his life as a vigilante that he started in Unbreakable. He’s now on the trail of “The Beast” (James McAvoy), one of the multiple personalities that make up “the horde” in Kevin Wendell Crumb’s very damaged mind. He suffers from dissociative identity disorder (DID), which manifests in his personalities fighting each other to get “the light”, the term used for when they have control over the body. Dunn is sectioned along with Crumb and is reunited with Elijah Price (Samuel L Jackson) in the institute. This is where the majority of the film takes place.

There are six actors in the film that are worthy of at least a mention. I’ll go in reverse order in how I rated their performances.

Samuel L Jackson as Elijah Price. Felt a little dialled in to me, and it just seemed a film too far for the character although the script didn’t give him much to do.

Bruce Willis as David Dunn. Much like Jackson’s character, without him there would be no trilogy but he isn’t integral to this particular film so had little to do that hadn’t been seen before ,but what he had to do, he delivered well.

Sarah Paulson as Dr. Staple. She was her usual solid self – a little typecast these days, but if it aint broke..

Spencer Treat Clark as Joseph Dunn. I thought he was ok in Unbreakable, but the first scene of this film shows how much of a better actor he has become with age. It was a good performance.

Anya Taylor-Joy as Casey Cooke. This lady is great. She’s picking her roles carefully so far and her career is all the better for it. Here she reprises her role from Split and her, along with Joseph Dunn, are the heart of the film. She tries to see the best in our protagonist.

Although these five main actors had their part to play in this film, make no mistake, this is the James McAvoy show. He plays Kevin Wendell Crumb, who due to his condition, has twenty-three other personalities living in his head with him. In Split we saw him play nine of them and I thought he deserved an Oscar nomination. Here he plays twenty. This is a masterclass, a man at the top of his game. It must have taken so long to film. Much like Split, I fear the timing of the films release will crush any chance of recognition from the academy but I hope I’m wrong.

The direction was a little off for me, there were too many PoV shots for my liking but I get the reason for them; Shyamalan wanted us at ground level for as much of the film as possible and its a cheap way to get shots. As for the writing, it’s dialogue heavy and misfires some of the time. The first act was good, setting the film up smartly. The second act meandered quite heavily in my opinion – we’re told time and time again by Dr. Staple that these guys are not in fact superheroes after we had the two previous films convincing us they are. It also seemed to be on a loop a bit and could have been 20 minutes shorter. For me though, all of that was quickly forgotten as the third act took hold. It was Shyamalan at his best; he leads the audience the way they are expecting to go, and we gladly follow thinking we are smarter than him and have the ending sussed, only to have him veer you off on a tangent and leave you with a “oh yeah, that’s a way smarter ending” feeling. It was great screenwriting.

Although many may think this movie is about three people with extraordinary traits I think there happens to be four people with powers. Casey’s superpower is empathy, this is focused toward Kevin, so much so that she can do what he can’t and that’s bring him to the light. Empathy is a power that the world could use a little more of these days.

Although probably the weakest of the “Eastrail 177 Trilogy” This was a decent addition to Shyamalan’s understated superhero universe and well worth watching.