GLASS: More of a Split than an Unbreakable

Genre: Drama, Mystery, Sci-fi, Thriller

Produced by: Jason Blum, M. Night Shyamalan, Marc Bienstock, Ashwin Rajan

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Written by: M. Night Shyamalan

Production Company: Walt Disney Pictures, Universal Pictures

Starring: James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sarah Paulson, Spencer Treat Clark, Charlayne Woodard      

Runtime: 129 minutes        

SYNOPSIS: 

David Dunn (Bruce Willis) has embraced his new responsibility as Philadelphia’s own vigilante the Overseer. His biggest mission yet is to track down Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), a man with multiple identities who is responsible for recent kidnappings and serial killings. And the two superhero v. supervillain’s encounter takes another twisty turn when a man of Dunn’s horrific past Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) comes back to haunt him. 

REVIEW: 

If there is ever such a thing as a misunderstood film, then M. Night Shyamalan’s cult classic Unbreakable (2000) is the obvious choice. There is even a saying that, had Unbreakable been released somewhere in the early to mid-2010’s, it would have had a more positive critical reception than what it had at the start of the millennium. The fact that it took people years or even decades to realize its groundbreaking potential (to the point where some now regards it as Shyamalan’s best film) shows how much it has aged like a fine wine. Then again, the fact that it came way ahead of its time made its achievement all the more revolutionary. 

At the same time, Unbreakable was handed the thankless task of being the follow up to Shyamalan’s breakthrough hit the Sixth Sense (1999). It’s no mystery that the Sixth Sense was a universally beloved film to both the critics and the award committee. It also introduces the audience to a lot of the Shyamalan’s tropes that have been associated with his later filmography. Because of the Sixth Sense, an M. Night Shyamalan film just isn’t an M. Night Shyamalan film if it doesn’t have ghosts or a twist ending in it, which can be seen as both good and bad. 

In that case, people’s expectation of Unbreakable being the same film as the Sixth Sense and the way the studio markets it as a psychological, supernatural thriller in the vein of the latter hurt the former. Yes, Unbreakable had Shyamalan’s signature twist ending, but, without the twist ending, it is a completely different film than the Sixth Sense. The Sixth Sense was a ghost story, while Unbreakable was undoubtedly a superhero story. Rephrasing Quentin Tarantino, it is a story about Superman who doesn’t know that he is Superman, which should have been the way the studio marketed it. If there is anything to blame for its early cold reception, it should have been the marketing, not necessarily the quality of the film itself. 

And marketing proved to be the big difference as it put Shyamalan’s dream of an Unbreakable trilogy dead on the water. It took him seventeen years, and a mini career resurgence of late to get his passion project going with Split (2017). On paper, it should have been just another standalone, original thriller from M. Night Shyamalan, except that it had an ending that indicates that the film takes place in the same universe as Unbreakable. 

In a superhero movie-driven industry, Split’s ending and the exciting direction it can go has dollar signs written all over it. And truth be told, it can only go one way: a film that reunites the major characters from both Unbreakable and Split. Glass is the emphatic answer to both of those films’ fans’ cravings. Also, it represents a chance for Shyamalan to finish off the story he’s wanted to tell for the last nineteen years, in a way that can hopefully both fulfill whatever expectations the series’ long-time fans have as well as subvert them. 

Whether the audience like Glass’ direction or not, that is open to interpretation. One thing’s for sure, Glass is an exercise on M. Night Shyamalan’s audacity as a filmmaker. Glass is the definition of anti-mainstream. To those who prefer their superhero cake with a Marvel/DC cherry on top, look elsewhere. It is far from the traditional popcorn entertainment that has invaded the theaters on the daily. Films like Glass exist to challenge the people’s perception of what a superhero and a super villain is, along with the tropes that come with it. Tonally, Glass leans heavier towards the slow, meditative drama side of Unbreakable’s spectrum than the frantic, insane horror side of Split’s. 

And so, true, Glass once again plays along with the rules of comic book storytelling. With Unbreakable being half a superhero origin story, half a super villain origin story and Split being entirely a super villain origin story, by comic book law, Glass is set up to be the pay-off.  And also, by comic book law, it is normal that a section of people fantasize the superhero v. super villains fight in Glass as the epic fight of the century where they lock horns atop the tallest building in the world and beat each other up brutally into submission, leaving mass destruction in their wake. 

With only a meager budget of $20 million, such an elaborate sequence would have been very difficult to accomplish. At the same time, that is not how Shyamalan envision his superhero universe in the first place. 

In theory, he’s crafted a world where there is a man who can see people’s past crimes just by touching them and another who can crawl through walls like he’s spider, but still, he never loses sight of the heart of its story. It uses themes prevalent in superhero comic books to tell basically a compelling human story about three ordinary men in the midst of an identity crisis (in Crumb’s case, literally). They might come from different backgrounds, different afflictions but one thing unites them: a lack of fulfillment and clear purpose in life. They share the gut feeling that they are destined to do something bigger and far more important than what they are doing now. It’s about these people trying to find their rightful place in the society, even if the outcome leads to the birth of a superhero and a super villain.  

Shyamalan wisely chooses to shy away from the grandeur typically associated to the genre, and focuses on the little feats (e.g. lifting weights, taking down small-time criminals) to depict the supers’ quests. 

By the time Glass begins, each character has already found their rightful place. As the story progresses, they undergo another identity crisis as their newfound belief is put under scrutiny. This is where Glass attempts to deconstructs the genre. In this case, Glass almost feels like a reversal to what Unbreakable believes in. Whereas Unbreakable believes that the extraordinariness in mankind makes them a superhero and a super villain, Glass turns that notion upside down. That’s where the series’ new character Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) comes into the fold. As a psychologist who firmly believes that their extraordinariness is a disease, not a super power, she represents more of a threat to the super powered characters than the superhero is to the villain and vice versa. 

It’s the thinking man spin on the genre that makes the brainy conflict between the super powered characters and the psychologist fascinating. It’s a reminder that the toughest threats aren’t the one who shoots laser or so, but one who can get under people’s skin, like Dr. Staple does. 

Action-packed is rarely in the Unbreakable series’ vocabulary. Watch Unbreakable, and the only real action sequence in that film comes at the end when Dunn chokes the life out of the Orange Suit Man. Watch Split, and that film’s fast-paced intensity is mostly derived from the creepy build-up than the action itself. By the superhero film standard, Glass’ number of action sequences might have been considered low. By the Unbreakable series standard, Glass surpasses expectations in terms of the volume of action included. 

In that sense, it is only fitting to say that this film’s opening sequence is action-packed. And it’s by miles its highest point. Here, Dunn takes center stage as the poncho-wearing the Overseer as he walks around town, fighting the sort of crimes that’s too low-stake for the Avengers. It’s the kind of action-packed first act that resembles the gritty, street-level superhero action that Marvel used to produce with its Netflix series. In the midst of the action, that first act also provides Glass with some fun father-son interplay between David and the grown-up Joseph Dunn (Spencer Treat Clark), the latter now his tech-savvy sidekick. 

And that first act explodes into another layer of awesomeness when Dunn takes on the Horde for the very first time. Refreshing for the superhero genre, it’s evident that most of the stunts are done practically, in a real environment. The idea of two people just grabbing and shoving each other might not be as cinematic as its Marvel/DC counterpart, but they’re just as intense with the knowledge that the actors are actually throwing the punch and climbing up the walls. And Shyamalan makes the fight all the more immersive through its cool use of POV shots that transports the audience into the eyes of either Dunn or the Horde as they’re fighting. 

On the downside though, Glass seems to be art imitating reality as Shyamalan’s narrative choices here reflects his long turbulent career as a filmmaker. There is part of Glass that highlights a shade of Shyamalan’s genius, but there is also another part of it that highlights a shade of his worst tendencies. At the end of the day, only Shyamalan knows in which direction he will take the Unbreakable lore. He has the right to wrap up his story in whatever way he wishes. At the same time, it’s clear that, even for a storyteller who understands the world inside out, the task at hand isn’t easy. And Glass is a case of a storyteller struggling with his own creation. 

Split had successfully established itself as part of the Unbreakable lore through its shocking ending, but trying to make these two realities feel like they belong from start to finish is where the hard work starts. Glass is not just about catching up with the superhero David Dunn and his super villains Elijah Price and Kevin Wendell Crumb, but it’s also about catching up with other supporting characters that are as important to the lore as the super humans, like Joseph Dunn, Elijah’s mother Mrs. Price (Charlayne Woodard), and Crumb’s victim Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy). 

Hence, Glass spends so much time bouncing off one wall to another with so many plot points thrown into the mix, leaving a final product that’s more jumbled than it is cohesive. In a series that pride itself on character-driven storytelling, not much is done to progress the characters beyond what is already known in Unbreakable and Split. Quite a lot of the characters feel like they’re just there, without any character arc to give meaning to their presence. 

And it’s unfortunate that Glass has a major character who kind of feels like he’s just there. In this case, it’s Bruce Willis’ character David Dunn. On the one hand, this film isn’t the everyday superhero movie where the superhero is the clear main character and the villains are clear supporting character. On the other, it is pretty surprising that the superhero isn’t in the film that often. Safe to say, the moment he steps into the psychiatric ward, he continuously fades into the background. There’s even a bulk of the film’s second act where he just vanishes from the narrative. 

Eventually, it all only serves as a distraction to the fact that the whole superhero and super villain trapped in a psychiatric ward idea in Glass isn’t as well-executed as it could have been. Shyamalan should be lauded though for even coming up with such idea. It’s fresh, and it’s never been done before. Yet, there’s also the feeling that the film doesn’t quite maximize the potential that the idea had. There are glimmers of thrills spread throughout the superhumans’ time in the ward, but beyond those glimmers, not much happens. 

There is maybe only one scene of note where the three principal characters are actually on-screen together, but for the rest of the film, they’re mostly separated from each other, sitting around in their cots. As a result, the middle part of the film can sometimes be slow and boring, so much so that it needs to shift its focus to the supporting characters to keep things moving. It takes quite some time for the characters to finally get into action. Even when they’re finally in action, the film isn’t short of plot holes. For one, there’s a major character who can gain access to the ward’s security system with ease. Sure, this character is supposedly genius-level smart, to the point that he can slip under security’s fingers. Yet it’s just hard to believe that a tight-lock security system capable of suppressing its super-powered patients can be so negligent and unaware of such breach.   

One of the most controversial creative choices Shyamalan made in Glass comes from its twist ending.  It’s controversial in the sense that it’s a take-it-or-leave-it ending. Take it, and it’s an ending that can feel like a breath of fresh air from the general superhero movie ending. Leave it, and personally speaking, it doesn’t work. The times Shyamalan’s twist ending work are where upon re-watching the film and knowing the twist that how the preceding events lead to the twist makes sense. Here, it doesn’t. Even with the explanation, there’s not enough in it to suggest that what happened before justify the means. It’s an ending that comes out of left field more than it makes sense of what happened before. And also, the way this film chooses to resolve the three main characters’ arcs are disappointingly anticlimactic. 

Glass ends the nineteen year long wait of seeing both Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson return as David Dunn and Elijah Price respectively. 

In Willis’ case, it might just be the film that he needs amidst his recent string of direct-to-DVD movies. For a big-named actor that’s often accused of slacking off on duty, Willis’ performance in Glass reflects an actor who shows effort and commitment in his role. For fans of Unbreakable, it’s great to see David Dunn’s story resumed onscreen, and greater that the actor steps up to the plate.  Its roles in films like Glass that reminds filmgoers of Bruce Willis’ versatility and range as an actor, one who can embody both the subtlety of his dramatic roles as well as the physicality of his action roles so easily. Dunn in Glass utilizes Willis’ talents in both areas pretty well, even if he has lesser screen time here than in Unbreakable, which is more of the screenplay’s fault than the actor. 

Jackson’s turn in Glass as the wheelchair-bound Elijah Price is also the rare chance to see a different side of him as an actor. His blunt, foul-mouthed persona has so often been his weapon of charm, the kind that sees him star in five to six movies per year. Like in Unbreakable, Glass takes away what’s been Jackson’s signature trait: his mouth. Early on in the film, Price is practically a catatonic man, who doesn’t gesture a lot, let alone speak. Obviously, he doesn’t stay like that throughout the whole film as he’s given more dialogue to play with in the latter stages. But even in his most subdued form he enchants once more in his most memorable, compelling character to date. He is able to project the air of a dangerously smart super villain as well as a tragic man so effortlessly, without having to move even a single muscle. 

Yet, performance-wise, Glass truly belongs to a character (or more appropriately characters) from Split. It sees James McAvoy reprise his role/roles as Kevin Wendell Crumb and the other twenty or so characters that inhabit his body, and the Scot relishes the opportunity to go more berserk as Glass lets loose with more of Crumb’s other personalities. It’s every actor’s dream to be able to play a variety of roles, but McAvoy’s performance in this film takes variety to a different level when he does that in a single project, within such a short space of time. He can go from being a lady, an eight year old boy to a native Spanish speaker in a snap of the finger, and the transition between characters flow so naturally. One particular scene when he’s in his prison cot surrounded by flashing lights, the way he goes from one character to another at each flash is award-worthy on its own (regardless of genre). 

CONCLUSION: 

Glass displays both the Jekyll and Hyde’s side of M. Night Shyamalan’s creative minds. It occasionally delivers the thought-provoking ideas, grounded superhero action and show-stopping performances, only to be squandered by a slack execution and a befuddling plot twist. 

Score: 6/10