We Need to Talk About Morgan

by Rob DiCristino

On empathy, character, and “calling the ending.”

Spoilers ahead for Morgan:

You probably missed Luke Scott’s Morgan last year. If that’s the case, you’re Fine. You get most of what you need from the trailer: Ex Machina meets Splice meets a thousand other “creepy person in a mystery box” science fiction premises. Is she human? Is she machine? Where does she poop in that glass room? You get the idea. Luke (son of Ridley) Scott’s debut feature is a strong technical exercise from a filmmaker with a lot of potential. Movies are very hard to make, and Luke Scott is probably going to be very good at making them if he continues to do so. But Morgan lacks soul. It lacks purpose. It lacks that often-intangible quality that transforms a film from a mess of bits and pieces into one of Roger Ebert’s empathy machines. Now, this isn’t to suggest that every movie needs a romance or a hero’s journey or a Jar Jar fucking Binks to make the kids laugh. That’s not what this is about. Plenty of great films challenge traditional structure and revel in their weirdness. This is about building a narrative in which we understand who characters are to each other, themselves, and what pushes them to action. This is doubly important in a film like Morgan, one so interested in the little nuances that separate human beings from everything else.

So, Morgan: At a secluded institution in East Jesus Nowhere, Drs. Simon Ziegler (Toby Jones) and Lui Cheng (Michelle Yeoh) lead a group of scientists to a major breakthrough in the development of artificial DNA. Their prize achievement is Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy), a five-year-old girl with synthetic parts and crazy growth hormones. She appears much older than her physical age and displays remarkable intellect and intuition. Trouble is, she also displays remarkable strength and emotional instability. After attacking Dr. Kathy (Jennifer Jason Leigh — blink and you’ll miss her), Morgan is confined to her habitrail pending an evaluation by The Corporation’s risk-management agent, Lee Weathers (Kate Mara). At first, Morgan tests well: she shows empathy for those she hurt and seems to feel real remorse for her actions. Even her handlers, weary of Lee’s cold professionalism, are defensive and territorial. They insist that Morgan is a person who deserves the right to make mistakes and learn from them. Lee disagrees, and after Morgan takes a bite out of the new psychologist (Paul Giamatti — this cast is ridiculous), she insists that the project be terminated. Morgan has other plans.

Morgan should work because it’s got a decent premise and a tremendous cast (further including Brian Cox, Rose Leslie from Game of Thrones, and Vinette Robinson and Jonathan Aris from Sherlock), but it’s dragged down by bland execution and underdeveloped characters. It’s not the only film guilty of that sin, of course, but it’s so much worse when digging into what makes those characters tick is supposed to be the whole damn point. If we’re supposed to be debating Morgan’s humanity and her influence on the larger family dynamic between all the scientists, then shouldn’t we have some understanding of who those scientists are and what shapes their behavior? Take Rose Leslie’s character, Dr. Amy. She’s Morgan’s favorite handler and the lynchpin to this whole escape scheme. She promises to take Morgan somewhere peaceful, somewhere she can soak in the true beauty of the universe and all that jazz. Aside from that, we basically know two things about her: she doesn’t like Lee, and she’s got the hots for hunky kitchen monkey Skip (Boyd Holbrook). There’s a bit early on to suggest that she has “boundary issues,” which sets up her devotion to Morgan, but there’s not much else to go on. Their connection is emphasized in dialogue, but only briefly shown.

A more infuriating example might be the red-hot romance between Dr. Brenda (Robinson) and Dr. Darren (Chris Sullivan), which consists of one conversation at dinner and one scene that implies they’re off-screen banging each other. Again, a better-developed dynamic might add weight to their insistence that Morgan was the “child” that helped build their relationship. Instead, we’re told they share a deep connection. We never see it, and they never spend significant time with Morgan (sorry, wait. Darren calls her “buddy,” so that’s a thing). Dr. Simon seems protective enough of Morgan, but we get the sense that what he’s really protecting is the blood and sweat he put into researching the project that developed her. Dr. Lui reads more as the enigmatic head honcho lady who supervises a number of projects, so no real personal connection there. The point here is that Morgan’s third act shift is meant to be motivated by contrasting Lee’s cold, calculated precision with the deep-seeded emotional bonds that this crew shares with their child. We’re supposed to be questioning what makes a person a person, what right a synthetic creature has to determine its own destiny, and how ethical standards can get wonky when affection becomes a factor. We can’t do that with the pieces Morgan gives us.

Put it this way: it’s never fair to compare movies, but Ex Machina works because Ava manipulates Caleb’s human need for connectivity and, in doing so, displays a weakness and authenticity that Nathan (an actual human being) seems to lack. Caleb is then forced to examine his own humanity (the arm scene!) and, as a result of some soul searching, moves to free Ava from her prison. What happens next perfectly illustrates the way Caleb’s humanity allowed him to be put in that position and the way Ava’s adaptation to humanity allowed her to take the actions she does. Again, it may seem inappropriate to compare one film with another, but Morgan and Ex Machina share so many themes (and the latter film develops those themes in such a superior way) that it’s hard not to see the similarities. None of this is meant to disparage Anya Taylor-Joy, who does what she can with very limited material. Morgan’s character arc is built around her ability (and right) to learn from the mistakes she’s made as a result of her model’s increased capacity for emotion. It’s a great hook on which to hang the film, really, because we often struggle with those same questions ourselves. What right does a person have to make a mistake, learn from it, and progress? Taylor-Joy plays that angle with all the latitude she can, but she’s never given the opportunity to develop it.

Lastly, the ending: I often joke that “if your friend says they saw the twist ending to ______ coming, they’re lying.” I get a lot of flack for that. People say I’m not looking hard enough, or that they just have more experience watching movies than I do.

The reality is that guessing a bad twist ending often has less to do with actual signifiers in the film than it does with viewing habits. It’s natural to speculate, but movies are not supposed to be our enemies; we shouldn’t spend their running time trying to outsmart them. We should allow a film to take us where it wants us to go, and we should judge it as a cohesive whole when it’s over. Case in point: Morgan’s twist ending is total bullshit. Yes, it explains how Lee was able to survive her injuries and why she was so weird around everyone. Yes, it pays off Jennifer Jason Leigh’s “assassin” line and Lee’s sterile, androgynous vibe. But the revelation that she’s also a synthetic person (an older model, free of the tendency toward emotion) rings like a cop out. That’s what my “lying” line is about: the film didn’t earn the twist, so there’s no way it’s going to feel right. It’s not in service of anything. It’s lazy dressed up as profound, answering a question the film never really asked. Morgan ends up arguing that emotional entanglements create complications. That’s fair, but we’re never emotionally involved enough in the film to care.

F This Movie! 371 - My Best Friend's Wedding

Margo Donohue of the Book vs. Movie podcast returns to help Patrick break up a wedding.



Download this episode here. (39.2 MB)

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Also discussed this episode: The Magnificent Seven (2016), Don't Breathe (2016), Dead Ringers (1988), Beware the Slenderman (2017)

Check out the Book vs. Movie podcast here and follow them on Twitter here.

Take Two: The Happening

by Patrick Bromley

It's just as bad as I remember. Maybe worse.

With M. Night Shyamalan back to being a major part of the pop culture conversation thanks to the success of Split (my feelings towards which aren't far off from Rob and Adam's), I've been thinking a lot about the director's work and what it means to me. As someone who would call himself a fan of Shyamalan's first few movies -- yes, even Signs and parts of The Village -- I'd argue that his career can be broken up into three movements: the skillful confidence of his early efforts, the flop sweat years of box office failure and constantly reacting to the previous bad movie by trying out a new kind of bad movie, and now the low-budget Blumhouse period, which has been met with a great deal of success both financially and with audience popularity. People really like M. Night Shyamalan again. It's been almost 15 years since we could say that.

Shyamalan made a number of bad movies during the flop sweat years, but none of them were really bad in the same way. After Earth is generic and impersonal big-budget filmmaking, while his adaptation of The Last Airbender is disastrously stiff, borderline incompetent big-budget filmmaking that suggests he'd never made a movie before. Of all his bad movies, I'm probably most partial to Lady in the Water and not because there's any single thing about it I actually like. He's really trying to do something different in that film, challenging both himself and his audience. I think he fails in every way, but I'd rather watch Shyamalan swing big and miss than what he does in, say, The Happening, a safe -- if still spectacularly terrible -- movie that's only distinction is that it's his first (and only) "rated R" effort. Outside of a little bit of extra self-inflicted violence, the film just finds Shyamalan doing his usual thing...and doing it very, very poorly.

I know that we have readers who love The Happening. It is not my intention to take that away from anyone. As entertainingly bad movies go, there is fun to be had here. It is a movie so poorly conceived on almost every imaginable level, so insanely misguided in its approach and, more often than not, so inept in its execution that I can very easily understand finding comfort in its awfulness. But there is no part of me that believes the theory that Shyamalan knew what he was doing -- that this is his tribute to bad B-movies and that he has pitched it thusly. I can buy the part about this being his B movie (in the way that the Shyamalan-produced Devil is), but like so much of his work he strangles it with pretense. I hate the term "elevated genre," by with The Happening Shyamalan is trying to do "elevated genre" and manages to fuck both the elevation and the genre up.

I still remember going to see the movie the weekend it opened in 2008 with Erika, JB and Jan. We were in a sparsely attended theater and more than willing to give The Happening a chance -- we were not there to make fun of it -- but pretty quickly it became clear what kind of movie it was and we found ourselves laughing at every terrible new line. No one else in the theater was laughing. I started to feel bad that we might be ruining the experience of everyone else, who appeared to be enjoying it on an unironic level. Truth be told, I hate inappropriate laughter at the movies, as it usually comes from an audience who have decided they are above what is on screen. It is not a practice in which I willfully partake. That said, The Happening wore me down. I didn't know how else to respond but to laugh, and the fact that we were among friends and all having the same reaction only made matters worse. I wasn't there to mess up anyone's good time, but how else am I supposed to respond when Shyamalan follows up a scene of graphic suicide with a character talking about how hot dogs are the perfect food?

There's a decent idea for a modern-day eco-horror movie at the center of The Happening: the trees and plants, tired of being trampled on by our stupid Uggs, fight back by releasing a toxin designed to wipe us out. Nature fights back! I'm on board. Unfortunately, Shyamalan either doesn't seem to know or care how the mechanics of horror movies work, so he establishes a premise but doesn't tell a story. There is no escalation to the situation he introduces. Things don't really get worse for our heroes. Something happens, and then it happens again and then it happens again. This is why the movie is called The Happening. It also doesn't understand how to dole out new information. There is a window of time in the first third of the movie in which we don't understand what is causing people to kill themselves. Then someone suggests it's the plants. Then the characters speculate that, yes, maybe it is the plants for a while. Then the big reveal is that it is HOLY FUCKING SHIT the plants. What a twist!

I am not suggesting that the movie need a twist. Part of what did M. Night Shyamalan in the first time around was his self-imposed need to end everything with a twist. But The Happening hardly understands dramatic structure. The movie works if we in the audience are misdirected to believe it's one thing, only to then be told "no, it's literally nature trying to kill us." The horror is in that realization. Instead, Shyamalan telegraphs everything early on and then makes a movie in which nature is the slasher, resulting in a sequence in which characters RUN FROM THE WIND. This is not how movies work. This is not how wind works. Don't worry; they succeed and outrun air. They don't want to kill themselves. Would that I could say the same.

A word about the whole "plants make us want to kill ourselves" premise. I'm not sure it works. It's just too passive. For it to be really scary, the people exposed to the toxin should immediately begin killing each other. I know this would be effective because I have seen The Crazies. The original and the remake! One setpiece, in which Shyamalan tracks the progress of a handgun as it is passed off from person to person shooting him/herself in the street, is the kind of thing I know he fell in love with from the writing stage through the final edit. It's photographed well because Shyamalan still knows how to put a sequence together, but the construction of it is self-conscious and the game of suicidal telephone becomes silly when it's meant to be, like, totally fucked up, you know dude? There is exactly one scene in the first few minutes of the movie in which the whole mass suicide thing is genuinely horrifying, and it's when the construction workers are all jumping off the top of a building en masse. Yes, it's ludicrous. Yes, it would be an unintentionally hilarious visual if it weren't for the reactions of the guys on the ground, who first think their friend has fallen and then can't understand what the fuck is happening when a few more people hit the ground. It's an honest moment, and the only time in the film in which a character's lack of understanding as to what is happening actually gives way to horror. Don't worry; because it's The Happening, it's ruined seconds later when the same actor gets a teary close up and cries "God in heaven..." and it all becomes funny because it is the worst. So much for bringing us to the brink of being scared.

Speaking of terrible acting, goddamnit does The Happening put most Hollywood movies to shame in this department. There are almost no words for how badly miscast Mark Wahlberg is in the lead. I'm not one of these assholes who suggests that it's impossible to buy him as a science teacher (especially if it was a science teacher that, I don't know, actively fought against teaching evolution under the direction of Peter Berg), but it is impossible to buy him as this science teacher. I'm not sure if it's just Shyamalan writing a garbage part for any actor or if he had so little faith in Wahlberg's ability to convincingly play the role, but the character's every line says something about "science." IT IS SO HORRIBLE AND FUNNY. I would quote them here, but it wouldn't do justice to Wahlberg's high-pitched, sing-song delivery that makes everything sound like he's not exactly sure he's pronouncing the words correctly. Zooey Deschanel, equally miscast as his wife, looks totally stranded. Her enormous eyes, once used to level Joseph Gordon Levitt and Buddy the Elf, here look into the camera like she wants to scream for help but can't because her sister Dr. Bones is being held captive right off screen and she doesn't want to get caught signaling us. Dummy up, New Girl.

Not helping matters is the fact that Shyamalan has asked cinematographer Tak Fujimoto to shoot much of the movie in closeups on actors' faces, a trick he borrows from Jonathan Demme (for whom Fujimoto has shot a number of movies). This results in a series of shots in which Mark Wahlberg looks confused even before people begin unexplainably killing themselves. He comes off really, really bad, but he's not alone. John Leguizamo is more convincing as a fat demon clown than he is here, forced to spout nonsense like "Don't take my daughter's hand unless you mean it!" and reference the fact that he's a math teacher as often as possible, because Shyamalan can only conceive of writing these characters in relation to what they do for a job. I know he thinks he's being all deep and shit by having these two men who guide their lives by the principles of logic and reason (math and science!) being confronted by something which defies everything they know to be true, but none of that comes off. Instead it feels like the first script written by a high schooler who doesn't know how to give characters personality traits, only expository details. Betty Buckley, a talented actress, is a disaster as a kooky old lady named You Eyein' My Lemon Drink. She poses one of the only external conflicts in the movie -- you know, the thing The Happening needs more of in order to be at all interesting or suspenseful -- and then succumbs to the same dumb suicide as everyone else. Thank you, threat, for neutralizing yourself without the heroes having to do a single goddamn thing. THE HORROR!

I know exactly how you feel, boys

I recognize that there can be a certain joy in watching a bad movie. But the pleasures of "bad" classics like Plan 9 from Outer Space or Troll 2 or Miami Connection is that everyone is working really hard to make a good movie but it's just not within their means. The fun is in watching them try. In the case of The Happening, though, we know that everyone is capable of doing good work, which means that the enjoyment comes not from watching them try but in watching them fail. It's cinematic schadenfreude of the highest order and it's hard to feel good by the time the end credits come up. (See? Told you! It's the wind! BUT IN FRANCE) It's hard not to giggle at the screenplay, one of the worst ever written by a former Oscar nominee, or at every second that Mark Wahlberg is on screen, but seeing a group of people this talented eat it this hard isn't rewarding; it's disheartening.

Now if you need me I'll be at the zoo feeding myself to the lions. Save me some lemon drink.

Cinema Bestius: Psycho

At the time of its original release, one critic called Psycho, "a blot on an honorable career.” Most critics at the time were either unimpressed or openly hostile to the film. When it emerged as one of the biggest hits of the decade, many critics changed their tune… to something with strings.

#8 – Psycho

Psycho may be the film your Pope has seen the most times. During my tenure teaching high-school film classes, many other films on the syllabus came and went, but Psycho always remained. I used to joke with my students that it was Illinois State law: a teacher had to screen Psycho in any basic film survey course or risk fine and imprisonment. There were semesters where I would see Psycho four times a day. There’s a recipe for a happy, healthy life. I got to know the film… intimately.

The Plot In Brief: Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) meets for a secret tryst with her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin) over a long lunch hour. Both are frustrated because financial circumstances will not allow them to marry. Back at the office, Marion brazenly steals $40,000 and sets off to share it with Sam. Tiring after a long night of driving, Marion decides to stop at a roadside motel to get a proper night’s sleep. The proprietor, Norman Bates (Tony Perkins) seems like a nice enough fellow, but he harbors many secrets.

Psycho is a film of many firsts: the first time Paramount vetoed a Hitchcock project (he wound up financing it himself with Paramount only distributing); the first time that Hitchcock worked with a low budget, using his television series crew; the first time a major star was dispatched halfway through a film; the first time a flushing toilet was shown on film; and the first time this level of violence was ever shown or suggested. It was also the first time audiences were required to watch the film from its very beginning—Hitchcock instituted a policy that no one was to be seated after the first ten minutes. Disappointed latecomers had to wait for the next screening, which led to big lines outside the theater and much interest from passersby.

At its core, Psycho is about loneliness. We witness the chance meeting of two impossibly lonely people and no good comes of it. Characters are vulnerable when alone: Marion in her small shower, Detective Arbogast sneaking back into the house alone. Loneliness leads to the grave. The film whispers that human connection is important; there is safety in numbers. The sheer number of characters in the police office at the film’s conclusion supports this. In the film’s famous last shot, Norman is still alone. Psycho is the story of a character so lonely, he allowed another person into his life in the most unconventional way imaginable. One of Hitchcock’s neatest tricks was marketing this serious meditation on loneliness and despair as a quickie exploitation horror movie.

Three years ago, I wrote an appreciation of Tony Perkins’ performance for this site in which I stated,

“I am impressed by all of Perkins’ line readings, but I think the pièce de résistance may be what he brings to one of the film’s simplest lines: ‘She needs me.’ Think about those three words—say them aloud. Most of us would emphasize the word ‘need,’ wouldn’t we? ‘She NEEDS me.’ Yet Perkins emphasizes the word ‘me’: ‘She needs ME.’ There is something so uncanny about that reading, so right for the material – it speaks volumes about the complicated relationship between Norman Bates and his mother. The character of Mother is not defined by her need; she is defined through Norman, and Perkins was astute enough to puzzle this out and manifest that through his line reading.”

This column is timely because an interesting new documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival just days ago. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “78/52 is an in-depth examination of the iconic shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which required 78 setups and has 52 cuts. The shot-for-shot breakdown comes from writer-director Alexandre O. Philippe, who interviewed filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro, Bret Easton Ellis and Karyn Kusama about the lasting impact of the sequence that pushed the boundaries of chaste American filmmaking.”

We can all look forward to that! So take a shower, acolytes, I am taking all of you to the MOVIES.

For almost 30 years, I would spend an entire class period analyzing the famous shower scene, freezing the frame on a VHS tape and lecturing about camera angles, technique, and the film’s production history. After Hitchcock’s death, Saul Bass, who designed the film’s opening credits and is listed as “pictorial consultant,” claimed that HE (not Hitchcock) had directed the iconic shower scene. That was bunk. No less an authority than Janet Leigh—who, after all, was IN THE SHOWER the whole time, insisted that no one directed her and the scene but Hitchcock.

Legend has it that, when the scene was edited, Hitchcock showed it to the Production Code Office for approval; they rejected it. Two of the five members of the board saw unacceptable nudity. Hitchcock waited a few days, then showed the board the exact same sequence with no changes. Now, the three members who had not seen any nudity claimed they saw some, and the two members who originally did said that they no longer did. At loggerheads over what to do, the Production code office approved the scene as edited.

Oh, and it is Shasta brand chocolate syrup being used as blood in the shower scene, not Hershey’s or Bosco. Some accounts get that crazy detail wrong. Assistant director Hilton Green has said that the crew used Shasta because it had just come out in a convenient squeeze bottle.

Many, many years ago during the first flowering of the laserdisc era (era) I became interested in the commentary tracks that started accompanying classic films. Using a painfully makeshift and amateur setup, I made my own scene-specific commentary track for Psycho by recording a laserdisc onto VHS and substituting yours truly on a microphone for the film’s soundtrack. I used to lend the tape to students who missed any of my classroom lectures on the film. As it often happens when materials are loaned to students, eventually I loaned it out and never got it back. I was very sad because I had put so much work into it, and I would love to hear it again, if only to hear a slice of my past.

One of my goals in my upcoming retirement, when free time will be more than plentiful, is to recreate that commentary track and make it available on F This Movie (#PopePromise). Patrick has said he would love to post that as the podcast one week. Since I will be essaying that commentary track ALONE, two thirds of the way through, I will be violently murdered.

Psycho’s Three Miracles: Hitchcock’s directing prowess reaches a new peak as he guides the audience like a magician, misdirecting us over and over again, so the final reveal is devastating and delightful; Tony Perkin’s performance, so affecting that no one could shake it and he ended up typecast for life; and Bernard Herrmann’s beautiful, sad, shocking score, a funeral oratorio for strings.

In nomine Hitchcock, et Herrmann, y spiritu Perkins, Amen. “Mother… my mother… what’s the expression? She isn’t quite herself today.”

Review: Get the Girl

by Patrick Bromley

I was rooting for this one and it did not let me down.

If you've spent any time reading this site, you probably already know that I'm a fan of writer/director Eric England. In full disclosure, he and I have been friendly online and he has even joined me on the podcast a couple of times. If you think this means I cannot give his latest film as objective a review as I am capable of giving, you should stop reading now. I am going to do my best to be fair, but keep in mind that no single review you have ever read -- not from any critic -- is 100% objective. It is not possible when examining art. I'm not particularly interested in objectivity in my film discussions, anyway, but rather curated subjectivity. I want to hear how a person feels, not some detached position.

But this is a conversation for another day. We're here to talk about Get the Girl, Eric England's fourth feature and his most accomplished film to date. It's a super fan, super entertaining bloody black comedy starring Justin Dobies as Clarence, a quote-unquote nice guy who loves beautiful bartender Alex (Elizabeth Whitson) from afar. If only she would get to know him, she'd understand just how right they are for each other, you know? To finally get some face to face time, he enlists the help of Patrick (Noah Segan), a sort-of scummy stranger who agrees to stage a kidnapping -- he nabs Alex and Clarence can come to her rescue, not only introducing himself in spectacular fashion but getting to be hero in the process. Things do not go as planned. They hardly ever do.

With its crime-gone-wrong plot and the manner in which it uses violence as a punchline, there's a very late-'90s quality to Get the Girl. For once, I don't mean that as a pejorative. This isn't some bullshit post-Tarantino rip-off that's 20 years too late, but it is slick and brightly colorful in a way that reminded me of late '90s/early 2000s horror even though it's really not a horror film. Though England is best known for his work in that genre, Get the Girl is more of a comic thriller in the vein of Very Bad Things or early Coen Brothers than it is his earlier horror efforts like Madison County or Contracted. Reuniting with his cinematographer Mike Testin, England uses the full width of the 2.35:1 widescreen frame for long, ambitious tracking shots and bathes the film in neon blues, pinks and purples for his best-looking and most polished film to date. It feels like a big step forward for hime on a technical level, and enjoying the filmmaking on display is a big part of the fun I had with the movie.

There are ways in which the screenplay by England (from a story Graham Denman) acts as a commentary about the "friend zone" and guys who feel somehow entitled to a woman's heart simply because they have some kind of one-sided affection. At the same time, though, the movie never quite overcomes its White Knight problem despite making an effort with a couple of reveals. There is something fundamentally icky about all of Clarence's actions in the film and Get the Girl isn't quite willing to take responsibility for that; again, some lip service is paid and there are developments that speak to the problem, but the character is ultimately meant to be entirely sympathetic and that might be an impossible feat to pull off for any filmmaker. The resulting outdatedness of the movie's gender politics are another major reason the movie feels reminiscent of a late '90s thriller -- though, again, I should stress that the comparison is to one of the good ones like Go, not lame WB shit like Teaching Mrs. Tingle. The distinction matters.

Beyond some of that stickiness, Get the Girl is wicked sharp fun. Dobies does his best to make Clarence likable given the circumstances and Whitson gives Alex a fierceness that belies her "damsel in distress" role, while Noah Segan and co-star Adi Shankar (who is also the producer responsible for many of those "bootleg universe" fan films like Joseph Khan's Power Rangers and Joe Lynch's Truth in Journalism) more or less steal the movie with their off-kilter comic timing that makes each laugh a well-earned surprise. This is a story populated by mostly reprehensible characters -- only Alex is really an innocent -- but we never sit there hating them because we're having too good a time. It's a difficult trick that England pulls off.

Get the Girl is the kind of movie I suspect I'll watch a bunch more times. It has great energy, great comedy, a genuine emotional hook (more within the plight of soon-to-be-divorced Alex than in Clarence's unreciprocated pining) and some excellent violence -- England, never one to shy away from splashing some gore around, lets things get bloody and stages one of the best headshots I've seen in years. The film feels different from his past work while still retaining his voice (England grew up on '90s genre movies, so I don't think the similarities are accidental) and represents an exciting leap forward for him in the way that it moves. His next film, Huntsville, has already been shot, and it already promises to be another change of pace. This is an exciting time to be an Eric England fan, and Get the Girl is the kind of movie that makes being an Eric England fan easy.

Reserved Seating: Split (Spoiler Review)

by Rob DiCristino and Adam Riske

The review duo with twenty-three competing personalities, all of them the nation’s top film critics.

Adam: Welcome to Reserved Seating. I’m Adam Riske.

Rob: And I’m Rob DiCristino. Split is the new film from my hometown boy M. Night Shyamalan, fresh off his recent success with The Visit. It’s the story of Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), a man with twenty-three personalities fighting each other for the limelight: Barry is a fashion designer. Dennis has OCD. Patricia is overbearing and matronly. Hedwig is nine years old and loves Kanye West. They exist in a jumbled cacophony that drives Kevin to kidnap high schoolers Marcia (Jessica Sula), Claire (Haley Lu Richardson), and Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy). While they try to bite and claw their way out of their basement prison, Crumb’s psychiatrist Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley) makes a horrifying discovery -- a twenty-fourth personality more dangerous than anything she’s ever seen.

Adam: In this early scene, we see Kevin, as Barry the fashion designer, visiting Dr. Fletcher but she’s not so sure which of Kevin’s personalities she’s dealing with.



Rob: Split is a fun enough concept that runs out of steam about an hour in.

Adam: I don’t even know if it makes it an hour. Those scenes between McAvoy and Betty Buckley are dead weight. And there are a lot of them.

Rob: And I kept waiting for a single one of them to matter. There’s no doubt that McAvoy earns his money with a fun cocktail of performances, but Shyamalan’s attention drifts too far away from narrative and character for an effective or satisfying payoff that makes it all feel worth it.

Adam: McAvoy is a talented guy and he does what he can, but I don’t think the script does him any favors. It’s a character that’s not written very well; the various personalities feel like caricatures an improviser would create at a comedy show. There’s no depth there. At the end, he’s just saying things that sound crazy for the sake of saying things that sound crazy. It doesn’t inform anything and it just makes the whole picture drag.

Rob: Exactly. It’s a series of impressions rather than fully-drawn characters.

Adam: I liked when he would say “Etc.,” but if I’m cherry picking that moment we’re in real trouble.

Rob: One of them exists solely to accidentally show Casey where some keys are! It’s obnoxious. Maybe my biggest issue, though, is that the final act meanders too long on foregone conclusions before pivoting into a ridiculous bit of fan service that had me shouting at the screen.

Adam: We’ll get to that. And don’t shout at the screen, Rob. At best it annoys the other people in the theater and at worst you’re being hyperbolic and none of that really happened.

Rob: Last spoiler warning, everyone!

Adam: They know it’s a spoiler review, Rob.

Rob: Anyway, I’m glad that Shyamalan has moved away from mainstream blockbusters and into smaller genre fare (where he belongs), but I’m still waiting for an idea as cohesive and engaging as his first three films.

Adam: What’s with the “where he belongs?”

Rob: I think the second phase of his career faltered largely because he was a genre director being pushed (by Hollywood or his own ego) into angling toward blockbusters. It feels like the pressure is off of him now, which makes me happy.

Adam: I’ve been an apologist for the guy more than most, based mostly on his run from 1999 to 2002, but the degree of cynicism and ugliness that comes with Split makes me wonder how much longer I want to stick with this guy. Let’s talk about the twist.

Rob: As you wish.

Adam: I like that first Wishmaster picture.

Rob: With all due respect to Unbreakable and its fans (who I know are legion), I hated the end of this film. The David Dunn cameo is a cop out, a sneaky way around an actual ending. The Beast’s decision to spare Casey because she’s as damaged as he is rings false and unearned; we spent a long time rooting for her so that she can do all of nothing to save the day. The final intersection of their two storylines is clunky and dull. It’s worth noting that I have the same issue with Unbreakable, a film that tells us all about a very cool final battle that it never shows us. I get that both films are meant to be origin stories. But, you know what? So is Iron Man. That movie has an ending.

Adam: I really like Unbreakable and didn’t have a final battle problem with that movie because I think it resolves its themes and a final fight or something wouldn’t have added anything. But saying all that, as a fan of Unbreakable I couldn’t have hated the ending of Split any more than I do. Let me explain why. There are four reasons. You ready?

Rob: I was born ready, Timmy.

Adam: My name’s not Timmy, Rob. I’m Adam. Or Riske. Or Mr. Riske. Or Mr. Adam Riske. Or Butch. Or Butchie. Or Butchie Boy. It’s not Timmy.

1. The way the ending is executed is terrible. The Unbreakable score is cued in the last scene with McAvoy. That’s fine. But then we cut to a diner where the news have to give McAvoy a villain name, “The Horde,” which is dumb. Then if people still don’t get it, we have an extra saying “Wasn’t there a supervillain that got locked up 15 years ago?” If you still don’t get it they continue “What was his name?” “Mr. Glass” answers Bruce Willis AND IF WE STILL DON’T GET IT he’s wearing a shirt with a name-tag revealing that he’s the same guy from Unbreakable. It’s so idiotic. Why not just show David Dunn then driving away from the diner and we see a sign for Amity Island. THEN OMG! IT’S IN THE JAWS UNIVERSE, TOO????!!!!

2. I didn’t like Split already before the Unbreakable shared universe reveal, so now that it’s tied to Unbreakable my enthusiasm for the earlier film is diminished because I have to associate it with something I don’t like. Unbreakable is about something. Split is about nothing other than franchise-building.

3. Shyamalan is basically telling us he wasted an entire movie in service of delivering a twist. He could have removed all of the therapy stuff and just told a David Dunn story in parallel with Bruce Willis and James McAvoy intersecting in the climax. If you introduced David Dunn and revealed this is an Unbreakable sequel it would have still been a huge twist (just one revealed in the middle) and been a complete movie. As it stands now, we have to wait another entire movie to tell the story Split should have told.

4. I don’t want to see an Unbreakable sequel, particularly one with a 2017 Bruce Willis, who only projects laziness and contempt on-screen these days. In 2000, he was still a guy I can root for, but 17 years later he’s completely become his unappealing public persona on-screen.

The ending of Split is a miscalculation of such a huge degree. It point blank tells the audience all that matters is shared universe building when the movie was sold as a standalone thriller without some sort of tie-in. It’s about as cynical as you can get. The movie is a clickbait article, not a story.

Rob: I couldn’t agree more. The entire thing boils down to a smug wink at the audience that made me want to rip my theater seat from the floor and throw it at the screen.

Adam: You’re not CrossFit enough for that.

Rob: I’ll never be CrossFit enough for you. Anyway, there’s been a bit of hubbub about the way Split portrays mental illness. Should we get into that?

Adam: Go ahead. I’m going to pee a little and really fast. Save my seat.

Rob: Personally, I don’t see the film as offensive to those suffering from DID (though, as a neurotypical, I might not deserve an opinion). Much like The Silence of the Lambs or A Beautiful Mind, it’s using the illness as a piece to fuel a larger character arc. Split mostly succeeds in that, I think, but it does the same character work in two hours that many superhero films do in ten minutes. Casey’s flashbacks have the same problem -- they take up way too much time for what they end up accomplishing narratively.

Adam: I found the movie much more offensive in its treatment of the Anya Taylor-Joy character than for those suffering from psychological illness. Shyamalan puts her through the ringer with her kidnapping, explains in disgusting backstory that she’s living with her sexual predator uncle and then leaves her at the end of the movie still in the care of the sexual predator uncle. I’ve heard a couple of theories saying she might tell the police woman about her uncle (which the movie doesn’t support, it’s too busy getting its kicks off the final twist) or that it sets up her as being a “super” like David Dunn and they’re going to join forces to which I say “good luck to you, because that’s too dumb for me to even comprehend.” Shyamalan uses the “flashback tragedy to inform a reserve of strength when dealing with a big bad” thing he did in Signs here in Split to a much less impactful effect. The way he exploits this girl and her history of sexual and physical abuse for the purpose of thriller mechanics offended me. You can’t introduce material like that with such insensitivity.

Rob: And with absolutely no payoff! Fan theories aside, the actual text of the film doesn’t at all imply that she’s going to do anything about anything. Kevin leaves her in the cage, the staffer finds her, and she gets in the cop car. Fade out. There’s ominous music and a thousand-yard stare. This isn’t some complex tone poem I’m too dense to understand. This is poor storytelling and a firm Mark Off for me. It’s actually the first film I’ve seen in a while that left me physically angry at the end.

Adam: Split is a big Mark Off for me too. It’s a garbage picture.

Next week Rob and I pay homage to the late Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert with a special Oscar show based on their classic “If We Picked the Winners” episodes. Join us then for our special episode - “If We Decided Who Won.”

Rob: Until next time…

Adam: These seats are reserved.

Weekend Open Thread

Hurt.

Coming off an inspiring day last weekend, this week has been a nonstop parade of shit. Let's talk about movies and celebrate the good news. Luke Ciancio had a birthday and Chaybee (Brahm) has an album out in just a few weeks and Josh Pearlman continues to be awesome and Cait Cannon got some new crockpot recipes and Adam Riske found that $5 bill in the pocket of some jeans he forgot about (maybe?) and now we can all finally find out how that Resident Evil franchise is going to end. So I guess it's not all bad.