With Split, M. Night Shyamalan Proves Anything Is Possible

Your career is never over

Split was the #1 movie at the box office last weekend, earning a cool $40,000,000 and outperforming Vin Diesel blowing shit up and the McDonald’s origin story. It had the 5th best January opening weekend box office of all time. The horror thriller from M. Night Shyamalan, starring James McEvoy as 24 different personalities trapped in one body engaging in psychological warfare with three teenage girls (and himself), is the director’s best reviewed effort in 15 years.

I saw it on Sunday morning and was a happy customer of the Shyamalan experience. It’s creepy, delightful, uncomfortable, mysterious, and not at all what you expect it to be. Some may find aspects of the plot controversial, but for anyone who has enjoyed the work of M. Night in the past, or just wants two hours of bizarre, unique, well-crafted storytelling, Split is well worth the price of admission.

But the movie is more important than box office numbers (over double what was projected) and reviews (his second best behind The Sixth Sense).

What’s important is that when everyone in the world thought Shyamalan’s career was over, and that his schtick was tired and overplayed, he kept doing what he loved and proved it could still succeed.

His biggest commercial and critical failures are when he stopped being himself. His “comeback” is a fucking miracle that should inspire every single person who is down on their luck. Everyone has days where they feel unbreakable and weeks when nothing goes according to plan. The success of Split is evidence that you are not doomed, no matter how bad things may seem, because if Shyamalan can dig himself out of a 12-year deep hole of shit and create something genuinely good that people love and will pay for without remorse, then anything is possible.

I’m happy he’s back to making good movies, but I’m also happy for him as a person.

Put yourself in his director chair for a moment. Just imagine the excitement and confidence he experienced as a 29-year-old who created, wrote, and directed The Sixth Sense, his first major movie, and got nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Then he spends the next three years of his life making Unbreakable and Signs, both awesome (flawed, but awesome) and people start comparing him to Alfred Hitchcock, his idol, and suddenly he has the creative and financial freedom to do whatever he wants because people trust him.

Now imagine taking that trust and freedom and power and using it to create The Village and falling flat on your fucking face. Then pick yourself back up, dust your monster costume off, apply some modern medicine to your wounds and ego, and spend the next decade of your life directing Lady in the Water, The Happening, The Last Airbender, and After Earth.

You fail with post-Sideways Paul Giamatti. You fail with Mark Wahlberg as a science teacher. You fail with Nickelodeon. You fail with Will and Jaden Smith.

But despite all the failure and humiliation, you keep doing what you love, because what else are you supposed to do? Your greatest twist isn’t the story of The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, or Signs. It’s the story of your career.