A fascinating conclusion to the series no one expected or even really wanted, Glass takes all that's great about Shyamalan's work and combines it with the things general audiences don't really enjoy. This will make it unpopular to some and only entertaining to others, but for those of us willing to give ourselves over to his vision, it's a fabulous exercise in auteurship that deserves attention.
Not long after the events of Split, Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) is at it again, having abducted three cheerleaders along with his "Horde" of alternate personalities. Determined to rescue them -- as was teased in the final scene of Kevin's movie -- is vigilante David Dunn (Bruce Willis), much older now and assisted by his grown son (Spencer Treat Clark). Using his special powers, he locates the girls and fights Kevin before they are both arrested. The rest of the story centers on the mental institution (read: prison and torture chamber) where they are held, interrogated by Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson). She specializes in patients who think they're superhuman.
The performances are all stellar, and writer/director M. Night Shyamalan has assembled familiar faces to bolster the emotional appeal, including Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlayne Woodard. Paulson holds her own as the calculating doctor, and in case it wasn't obvious, she ends up being the primary antagonist here. Some will lament the script's underuse (and, arguably, misuse) of Bruce Willis, relegated to a minor role in which he mostly broods and looks bored, but his best talents haven't been satisfyingly featured by a filmmaker in years. Instead, we get a lot more McAvoy doing his awesome work, and some healthy doses of Samuel L. Jackson, whose character Elijah Price or Mr. Glass has been held in the institution for many years.
What's really fabulous about this film -- and series -- is how it's about superheroes without being a superhero movie. Leaving the theater, I heard cries of "Shyamalan doesn't know how to film action" and "where was the climax?" People clearly wanted more, but I'm not sure why. The great drama of this film is mental, brought wonderfully to life in the closeups of the main characters' faces as they struggle through the psychological implications of their actions and their identities. And then, when their powers do unleash, Shyamalan views it with a deliberately distanced lens, forcing us to view them as they really exist in a real world. Their actions are amazing, but we're shown them in an almost pedestrian context.
That's why the ending works especially well for me. There is a climax, to be sure, but we're promised a huge showdown atop the tallest building in Philadelphia; we're given a smaller fight on the lawn of Dr. Staple's institution. But the climax isn't even the fight. The whole affair is a sort of overly aggressive anticlimax, forcing us to reconsider not only our expectations of these characters but of these films, and of the whole superhero genre. Shyamalan's endgame here isn't to recreate the grandeur of Marvel's universe, but rather to subvert it. He suggests time and again -- through Staple -- that we might not have been watching superhero movies disguised as psychological thrillers, but rather psychological thrillers masquerading as superhero stories.
We end the film with (SPOILER ALERT) the deaths of the three major characters, the apparent victory of the shadow organization -- yes, another stylish throwback to comics -- and a typical Shyamalan twist ending. The three people most attached to the heroes (their sidekicks, we might say) team up together in the film's final moments, both mourning their passed loves and taking up their mantles as they witness footage of the battle virally spreading to the world. Are they vigilantes against the institutions of the world? Speaking truth to power? In it to selfishly vindicate their fallen friends and family? Or could they be teaming up to, as Mrs. Price suggests, create their own universe? Because that's exactly what Shyamalan himself has made a career of doing.
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