Glass Review

M. Night Shyamalan is currently Hollywood’s most infuriating director. Not because he always makes dreadful films, but because he sometimes makes good films. I really like his first four efforts (yes, even The Village) but the man is also responsible for two of my least favourite films of all time. His borderline sacrilege adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender and Will Smith's nepotism vehicle After Earth are cinematic atrocities bad enough to kill most filmmakers’ careers. Yet Shyamalan keeps making films and I keep hoping he'll produce something as good as The Sixth Sense, Signs or - if we're so lucky - Unbreakable.

I love Unbreakable. Despite being a superhero film, Shyamalan’s second feature bears little resemblance to the genre as we know it today. Unbreakable is a gradually paced exercise in atmosphere, deconstructing comic book conventions from a perspective unburdened by the need for action and spectacle. Unbreakable is smart and meditative; it’s engaging not because of any flash or thrill but because its ideas are presented with engrossing intelligence. Which is why, when Split revealed in its final moments it had been a sequel to Unbreakable the whole time, I raised an eyebrow.

Split is not like Unbreakable. Shyamalan has been bafflingly linked to the thriller genre since the start of his career, but Split is his first film that really fits that description. From this perspective, Split is effective. Thanks in no small part to James McAvoy’s astonishing performance, the film is genuinely thrilling. Elsewhere, however, it doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny. Not even getting into the mental health issues, Split’s narrative raises far too many questions on reflection (i.e. the baffling living arrangements of McAvoy's character). In the moment, Split’s brisk pace allows you to ignore these problems. In a film like Unbreakable, when you have all the time in the world to ponder the plot’s less robust areas, Shyamalan wouldn’t get away with it.

Which brings us to Glass, the conclusion to Shyamalan’s meta-superhero trilogy and the film that brings together the worlds - and, more significantly, the tones - of Unbreakable and Split. The result is predictably inconsistent. The first and third acts resemble the taut speed of Split, whilst the slower second act wedged between them recalls Unbreakable. Except, I think it's unfair to equate the pace of the second act with the pace of Unbreakable. Whilst Unbreakable is slow, it's purposefully slow. The second act of Glass, on the other hand, is just sluggish.

Glass’s flaws aren't exclusive to the second act, but that is when they're most exposed. For one, Split's issues with narrative plausibility continue into Glass and - as I predicted - they're much more glaring when we're given the chance to notice them. In particular, a substantial portion of the second act revolves around Mr Glass (Samuel L. Jackson) secretly gaining control over the mental institution he's detained in. To achieve this, he relies on the guards’ spectacular incompetence, which somehow hasn't rendered them unemployed. His methods of deception are also hurriedly explained to us in a vain attempt to conceal the holes.

I'm not one to let plot holes ruin a film for me; I can still have fun even if nothing makes any sense. However, Glass has other problems. Shyamalan continues the genre deconstruction that made Unbreakable so intriguing but he doesn't do it as skilfully. This isn't to say the ideas are bad. On the contrary, I think Shyamalan thoughtfully expands on the themes of Unbreakable... in theory. He delves deep into the characters’ search for meaning in comic books and sets up a potentially fascinating ambiguity by asking how real their alleged powers are. We're made to wonder if they are as 'super’ as they claim to be, or if it can all be traced to trauma and an overactive imagination.

So, what's the problem? It's all in the delivery. Again, this is an issue most obvious during the second act, thanks to the ubiquity of Dr Ellie Staple. Sarah Paulson does her best to convince us that Staple is an actual character and a plot twist in the final act does endow her with more purpose. However, it's all too clear that Staple is little more than Shyamalan's mouthpiece. He relies too much on her monologuing to convey his ideas, resulting in tedious stretches of dialogue that feel more like a dissertation than a film. These moments benefit from the ideas at least being interesting, but they can't help but feel sloppy in comparison to Unbreakable.

I don't want to give the impression that I hated this film. I do have a lot of reservations but there is also a lot to like here. Aside from the ungraceful script, Glass is well constructed. Shyamalan remains a creative director and his slower films, despite revealing more cracks, leave more room for showcasing his inventive side. In particular, the oblique way he shoots the action is as compelling as ever; if the writing becomes dull, the cinematography is rarely conventional. Additionally, the score is aptly eerie and the actors give it their all. McAvoy, in particular, surpasses the versatility of his Split performance, flicking through even more personalities with even more elegance.

Glass is at its best in the third act. Here, the need for climactic action forces Shyamalan to embed the genre deconstruction into the events. However, Shyamalan still has Mr Glass explain how these fit into his thesis with superfluous dialogue. This is emblematic of Glass’s shortcomings. Shyamalan has some great ideas, but he’s so desperate for us to hear them his communication becomes heavy-handed. It’s a shame because I wanted this to be a definitive return to form. Instead, whilst it’s not without merits, Glass is an intriguing set of ideas in need of a better film.