The Lovers

THE LOVERS (Azazel Jacobs, 2017)

Although Michael (Tracy Letts) and Mary (Debra Winger) are husband and wife in THE LOVERS, they are effectively already separated. Whether each is aware the other is having an affair or not doesn’t seem to matter. Michael makes half-hearted excuses about meeting a friend or staying late at work while slipping away to be with ballet teacher Lucy (Melora Walters). Mary doesn’t really mind as she is often getting together with writer Robert (Aidan Gillen).

With some pressure from their paramours, both Michael and Mary are close to telling the other that they are leaving the marriage. They just need to wait until after their son Joel (Tyler Ross) and his girlfriend Erin (Jessica Sula) come home for the weekend. A funny thing happens in the lead-up to this visit. Michael and Mary wake up nose-to-nose one morning and rediscover something that attracted them so many years ago, causing them to sneak around with each other on their lovers.

THE LOVERS has the makings of a farce or the kind of romantic comedy that the French tend to be better at executing than other countries, but writer-director Azazel Jacobs makes the unpleasantness of these relationships almost oppressive to bear. Michael and Mary are miserable people who have supposedly found at least a small measure of happiness outside their marriage, although even their lovers seem more like diversions than emotional investments. This material could be presented as tragedy or comedy. It certainly could be funny--and it’s apparent that it’s meant to be to some degree--yet Jacobs chooses a middle ground that doesn’t flatter the heavier or lighter components. He flattens the couple’s inner lives and employs Mandy Hoffman’s score as counterpoint, sweeping music for people not prone to grand or sweet gestures.

THE LOVERS’ lack of humanity cannot be blamed on its lead actors. Letts, a writer with scene-stealing supporting performances in INDIGNATION and CHRISTINE, favors highlighting Michael’s absurdity, especially in how he’s ended up pursuing a woman who exhibits some of the nagging wife-like qualities that one might assume caused him to cheat in the first place. Letts reveals that the character knows he’s letting down everyone because he’s given up on himself. Winger’s Mary seems fatigued and is just drifting wherever the currents take her. Winger is good at wielding Mary’s relational boredom as a defense. Neither performance cuts very deep because the roles are not written with complexity, but Letts and Winger hint at layers there to be uncovered.

To acquaintances Michael and Mary might appear to have functional lives. Evaluated on their own, the various pieces of THE LOVERS look like they will assemble into a compelling portrait of a broken marriage. In actuality, the film and the relationship in it amount to less than what can be observed. They have a shell of a marriage, and the film, while rich with promise, is similarly hollow.

Grade: C

Split

SPLIT (M. Night Shyamalan, 2016)

Being abducted and locked in a cell-like room is terrifying enough for three teenage girls in SPLIT. Even more disturbing is discovering that Kevin (James McAvoy), the man holding them against their will, has multiple personalities. Like anyone would be in the situation, Claire (Haley Lu Richardson) and Marcia (Jessica Sula) are at wit’s end. Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy), who’s more of an acquaintance of than a friend with the other two, appears to have gone into survival mode as she assesses how they might escape.

Their best bet is through Hedwig, Kevin’s child personality. He taunts them with the information that they are there as sacrifices for The Beast, but he’s also naïve enough that he might be fooled into bringing Casey to his room, which he says has a window. On the outside the girls’ best hope is Kevin’s psychologist Dr. Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley). She doesn’t know what he’s done, but she has a good relationship with him and senses that there may be a power struggle among Kevin’s personalities that could have caused him to do something terrible.

Although it’s probably unfair, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan has a reputation as a filmmaker whose works succeed or fail based on their plot twists. Not that there aren’t surprises in SPLIT, especially the exclamation point of a scene in the end credits, but in this film what you see is what you get. Shyamalan settles into the scenario to reap it for all of the possible terror. His use of close-ups and preference for longer takes than is typical for current Hollywood genre pictures creates a sense of claustrophobia. Cinematographer Michael Giouliakis captures horrific beauty in the musty setting where much of SPLIT takes place. Whether hinted at or depicted, the film’s brutality comes in bursts that conjure the feeling of helplessness.

People dealing with trauma, often poorly, recur in Shyamalan’s films. His characters tend to resist accepting the way things are through a kind of willful blindness. Whether questioning God or a stand-in authority figure, Shyamalan’s protagonists reject reality for a more comfortable but self-harming illusion. What differentiates SPLIT from his other films is that he weaponizes existential anger and confusion. Underneath the thriller elements are a story about coping with abuse and choosing whether mental and physical scars provide a means of protecting oneself or destroying others.

SPLIT’s portrayal of multiple personality disorder is not going to be supported by the DSM-5 or getting a ringing endorsement from the American Psychiatric Association. (It would be fascinating to do a detailed comparison of how the director portrays therapists throughout his filmography.) Still, McAvoy does an excellent job of being convincing and quietly menacing in Kevin’s various personalities. There’s nothing actorly about the performance, yet he crafts distinct individuals in his different guises. Shyamalan and McAvoy collaborate to hit the proper tone with a tricky character who could be laughable. When he’s dressed and acting as Patricia, it’s unsettling to see this guy with a shaved head who believes he is an officious woman. That earnest belief in the moment, regardless of the truth, is why SPLIT disturbs.

Grade: A-