Bruce Willis’s David Dunn first appeared 19 years ago in M Night Shyamalan’s poetically turgid cult hit Unbreakable, which saw our sort-of hero mooching around Philadelphia, discovering his super-human gifts (durability and an ability to visualise people’s past crimes by touching them) and uncovering the true nature of fragile, comic-book obsessive Elijah Price (Samuel L Jackson).
Dunn then popped up at the end of Shyamalan’s wonderfully shlocky, dissociative identity-disorder shocker, Split. This featured James McAvoy as Kevin Wendell Crumb, a sex pest and cannibal with multiple personalities and above-average wall-climbing skills.
Do you need to have seen the first two films to get Glass? Not really, but knowing the back stories certainly makes the experience richer.
The plot, initially, is straightforward. After a set-to, Dunn and Crumb end up in the same asylum as Price. A psychiatrist (Sarah Paulson) wants to convince all three men that, far from having supernatural powers, they suffer from delusion.
The characters spend a lot of time talking. Which is hardly surprising, because talk is cheap and this film was made for practically nuppence ($20 million). Much of what’s said is funny (Crumb and Price connect while discussing “the American Sublime”).
There are also visual sequences that hit hard (one fairground ride brought tears to my eyes). And it’s great to see so many old faces. Still, no one, not even the brilliant McAvoy, and certainly not Anya Taylor-Joy (as Casey, the girl of Kevin’s dreams), is stretched.
Far too many of the reveals are silly and, in that so much hinges on the status of comic books and the codes of the superhero universe — hardly unexplored territory.
Shyamalan is incredibly gifted. He’s also suffering from delusions of grandeur. Frankly, if he was your patient in a mad house you’d think twice before setting him free.
Glass - European film premiere
