“Glass” recently premiered as the third part of M. Night Shyamalan’s Eastrail 177 Trilogy, which began with 2000’s “Unbreakable” and continued in 2017’s “Split.” “Unbreakable” premiered just on the heels of Shyamalan’s wildly successful “The Sixth Sense,” the critical and commercial peak of his career. “Split” premiered two years ago, with Shyamalan’s career having taken a critical beating since the beginning of the 21st century. There’s an expectation that each Shyamalan film will promise something good only to go off the rails at the end. Yet, Shyamalan continues making his movies, invested in his oftentimes unusual stories. “Glass” is no different in some ways. He writes and directs the film, which sometimes buckles under the pressure set up by its predecessors, and by its own narrative.
The central thrust of the film concerns a psychiatrist trying to help three men with seemingly supernatural powers realise that their powers are mere delusions of grandeur. There is Elijah Price (Mr Glass), who was the antagonist of “Unbreakable”. He is a man with osteogenesis imperfect, a disease that renders his bones especially fragile. He is also something of a supernatural mastermind. Convinced that superheroes exist, he spent years trying to find the superhumanly invulnerable David Dunn, the protagonist of “Unbreakable.” Dunn’s superhuman strength puts him on a path with the antagonist of “Split,” Kevin Crumb, a man with 24 personalities, including the animalistic “Beast.” From its inception, “Glass” seems mistitled. Elijah doesn’t appear until a significant portion into the film and doesn’t do anything of note until at least the half-way point. Instead, the film diverts between Dunn and his adult son, Joseph, and Kevin and his personalities and a recent victim of his, Casey. As a result, the film’s focus immediately runs the risk of seeming nebulous, which mirrors its own relationship with its predecessors. The relationship between the three films intrigues. “Split” does not announce itself as a sequel to “Unbreakable.” The former is a psychological quasi-horror while the latter is a superhero thriller film, with a mild action aesthetic. The films only appear linked at the very end of “Split,” when Dunn makes an unexpected appearance. And so, the culmination of the stories immediately promises wavering dividends. “Glass” must exist in multiple planes. It must be different things to different people, and within that dichotomy comes the film’s own narrative oddities, which set it up as being both very much a film for 2019 and very much a film that seems out of place in the now.
When “Unbreakable” first premiered, it was to a very different media landscape. In my review of “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” I noted the way that 2018 in film seemed especially cognisant of the idea of the limits of superheroism. From the most commercial of blockbusters, like “Avengers: Infinity War,” to animated gems, like “The Incredibles,” the question of what a superhero does and means is critical. Different films have handled the question with varying degrees of effectiveness, but the question of what makes us special and what specialness does to the world is intriguing, even when it becomes familiar. It’s very likely that our current commercial obsession with superheroes accounts for the green-lighting of “Glass.”
But then, there’s a quaintness to the film that’s out of place. It is very much a commentary on superheroes that becomes incredibly meta-textual. But, 2000 was a different time for superhero movies. Shyamalan’s commentary on comic books had a different tenor then, and in a bizarre (but not unpleasant) way, that commentary does not seem to have changed.
The very best thing that recommends “Glass” is its complete sincerity. It’s interesting; as much as “Split” works for the way it terrified and horrified, I always return to the impossibly earnest image of Betty Buckley’s psychiatrist trying so desperately to help Kevin and his horde, convinced that his alleged delusions were real and convinced that she could find a way to help him. There are no characters with that level of sincerity in “Glass” (and the film does a poor job of effectively deploying Anya Taylor-Joy’s Casey) but the film’s narrative and its overall mood all teem with a faith and unshakeable belief in the importance of this story. It’s Shyamalan’s best asset when the film goes off the rails, although despite the less than warm critical response, what I find striking about “Glass” is how difficult it is to despise. The actors are committed and James McAvoy, who plays Kevin, most of all. He relishes a character that gives him a chance to play in different registers but the performance is fully committed in a way the film needs. On the other side of the spectrum, Bruce Willis spends a lot of time glowering in shadows, which feels like a let-down from his character in “Unbreakable”.
The film itself is rather simple. Admittedly, there’s a fussiness overwhelming the plot, which depends on many changing stakes, and stacking of information that threatens to become unwieldy. But ultimately this is a simple film and even its twists are less about upending the world that these characters inhabit and end up reaffirming common themes, like distrust in figures of authority, a need to defy the odds to succeed, and a need to believe in self above all. It’s all very straightforward if you look at it from a certain lens, but it’s augmented by some effective moments of direction that prove that Shyamalan still has control of his camera. As it is, “Glass” is fine, even oddly harmless. It’s too low key to be an effective sequel to “Split” and it’s too muted in its action focus to be as effective a film sequel to “Unbreakable as it could.” It is its own weird, simple thing. Pre-knowledge helps, but I doubt whether no knowledge going in would spoil the experience of seeing “Glass.” Is it a rousing beginning to 2019 in films? Perhaps not. But it’s hardly an indictable offence. It’ll do.
“Glass” is currently playing at Princess Movie Theaters and Caribbean Cinemas Guyana.
