Split

I went to watch Split on last Saturday and then again on Monday. Don’t ask me why. Second time the movie was just an excuse. And yet I have been struggling with this post for past three days. I am not a movie critic so I really don’t know how to write a proper review. My movie posts are usually about my fangirl moments or me spitting venom because I just didn’t have a good time watching it. I don’t know what to write about Split because of two reasons. One, I don’t know shit about Psychology. Second, I don’t think I am normal enough to discuss about mental disorders. So to cut the long story short, the movie was awesome. Well, I have a thing for the broken ones.

Kevin has 23 personalities. However he admits to his therapist that he has a hidden twenty fourth one that nobody has ever seen. Is he telling the truth? Situation gets worse when he kidnaps three girls and locks them in his basement. As per his claim the twenty fourth personality of his is coming to seek retribution. I was watching James McAvoy swiftly moving across his multiple personalities with mounting excitement and a tinge of sympathy. The mix of hatred and violence driven by repressed childhood experiences was sometimes becoming too relatable to me. Some personalities of Kevin are good, some are not so good. The not so good ones think they are doing Kevin a favour because he has been too weak to protect himself all throughout his life. Relatable again. My friend asked me a very funny albeit good question in the middle of the movie. How many faces do you have? And which one is it I am watching the movie with today? I was nearly compelled to tell him a quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald about writers comprising of many faces in one person. Well, I am not a writer. But that doesn’t mean I cannot have many faces. No one can touch the real you when you place your throne right in the middle of the mirror maze of your wretched soul. And there’s comfort in blindsiding people.

While scratching my head and looking for relevant materials for this post I came across a few articles that talk about psychopaths and why we feel so fascinated by them. Martha De Laurentiis, the executive producer of Hannibal probably has the most beautiful insight.

“The most interesting psychopaths exhibit some unfettered id, some brilliantly manipulative side of our personalities we keep in check from the world. Yet, most of us don’t really want to hurt people, we don’t truly understand the needs that drive killers, and that tension between seduction and repulsion ends up being endlessly fascinating.”

(As told to LA Times)

Mirror mirror, on the wall, who's the craziest of them all?