Glass is a 2019 film starring Samuel L Jackson, Bruce Willis, James McEvoy and Sarah Paulson. It's directed by M Night Shyamalan and forms a continuation -- and apparently conclusion -- of his hit duology of popular fillums "Unbreakable" and "Split".
And while Glass is bound to get a lot of flack for subverting fan expectation, it is actually a pretty effective and intelligent conclusion to the trilogy. However, that doesn't mean the film isn't somewhat problematic, and it has caused a bit of discussion amongst myself and my upper class associates.
On the face of it, M Night seems to have "slipped one by us" so to speak, and I'm sure he thinks he has scored a point in the psychological war for humanity's soul. But has he really? I will explain, dear boy.
May I present the Popcorn Lobotomy Elite Review of "Glass".
So let's get this out of the way. This is going to be a spoiler review so if you haven't seen the film yet, and you care to, please trot along to your local cinemaplex and watch it.
So let me just say that M Night Shyamalan has shown himself quite adept at being a slippery little character in more ways than one.
On a narrative level, "Glass" certainly forms a worthy conclusion to the Unbreakable universe trilogy and contains enough twists and turns in it's story to keep the audience guessing -- but the real twist here is that it manages to culminate in a surprising anti-establishment allegorical message.
I guess we should have expected nothing less from a director who's capable of making the revelation that he is making a trilogy as the twist ending of the second film in the trilogy itself, eh? Even saying it out loud proves quite the sexual violation of one's head.
Point being, with the rise of phenomenon like the yellow vests in France, and an apparent growing sense of dissatisfaction in people around the world, the last thing we need is more revolutionary sentiment being peppered into popular culture.
And yet, M Night saw fit to give us exactly that. And now, I guess we'll just have to deal with it!
"Glass" intertwines the stories of Elijah Price, David Dunn and Kevin Wendell Crumb almost immediately by quite skilfully manoeuvring them into the same mental asylum where we last saw Elijah at the conclusion of Unbreakable. M Night wastes no time in getting to the meat of the story and giving himself an excuse to have his 3 protagonists interact.
It's quite a joy to see all these characters together and explore how they relate to one another. Once again James McAvoy's portrayal of an individual with Dissociative Identity Disorder is a pure pleasure to watch, and is the stand out acting in this film overall.
Of course, as one who understands the process of Monarch pro -- er I mean someone who has encountered the psychological disorder in real life -- one might argue it's not an accurate representation.
I mean imagine if people could actually become so perfectly dissociative from such a mild trauma as parental abuse! Heck, if my daughter had had such predilections, she might still be alive today... but who cares when it's so gash darned watchable, am I correct?
Most of the film deals with Elijah Price's secret plan to escape from the asylum and demonstrate to the world that people with special powers truly do exist. Of course, in order to do so, he intends to manipulate David Dunn and Kevin Wendell Crumb into battling in public, hence revealing their powers to the world.
As the story unfolds, one never quite knows where it is all going or how it will turn out, and the movie deliberately plays with that uncertainty. M Night skilfully uses our expectations from years of training watching idle comic book movie and subverts them to give us a surface level critique of the genre itself.
And that's where I would have expected the meaning to end. As a clever commentary on the tropes of Superhero movies, Glass would have been a suitably disposable entertainment for the masses. It would have made you feel intellectually stimulated while simultaneously giving its audience nothing of true importance to chew on. It could have been exactly how we prefer popular culture to be -- engaging and distracting and feeling important, while actually being completely devoid of any fuel for the mind or, heaven forbid, food for the soul.
Quite frankly, it feels like just yesterday we had to slip an oestrogen cocktail into Wachoski brothers' drinks to stop them inspiring a revolution in the populace, but it just keeps springing up like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.
But no, M Night just HAD to imbue the climax of his film with a message, didn't he?
The key moment in the climax comes when Sarah Paulson's psychiatrist character offers her hand to David Dunn and reveals her true nature to him as he writhes on his deathbed.
Flash to a crowded restaurant. Sarah Paulson is sharing a table with a bunch of faceless suited men. A patron leaves the restaurant, and they suddenly all stop talking. "It's just us now", one of the men says.
And there we have it fellows, YET ANOTHER revelation of a supposed shadowy group of social manipulators! The real villains of the entire trilogy!
As I've said before, I'm getting well and truly sick of this portrayal of upper class philanthropists. All the secret groups I know about are doing nothing but necessary work, and to portray them in such cartoonish terms is rather abhorrent.
But "Glass" doesn't stop there. It's actually the final reveal of the film that forms the most concerning and reckless part of the film!
Elijah succeeds in his plan to expose the abilities of his cohorts by using footage from the security cameras in the asylum and he puts out a message that even average everyday people can be special and powerful, if only they let their abilities manifest. And that if they do, there's hope that the masses might rise up and defeat the shadowy group that oppresses them!
What gets my goat, is that M Night implies that our primary concern... I mean their primary concern, this fictitious shadowy group... is keeping the population unaware of their own personal power. That we... I mean they... feel the need to dissuade special people from standing out and allowing their abilities to shine.
Well let me tell you, dear boy, MY primary concern is NOT keeping you suppressed at all. You do an excellent job of that yourselves, and I thank you very much for that, I really do.
Honestly, we barely have to do more than give you have easy access to a local McDonald's and you'll eat yourselves into a confused stupour to ensure you'll never amount to anything significant.
And let's face it, we simply don't need a secret group to go around murdering people who might cause a revolution, because we have genetics on our side. A few feats of strength or even superpowers are no match for generations of superior breeding and genetic refinement.
The sad truth is, it's in your nature -- and your very DNA -- to be mediocre. You need no social or chemical engineering from us with your vacuous, philosophically juvenile understanding of the world. We just need to provide you with an abundance of beer towers, stuffed crust pizzas, soulless music and a few cat videos, and you'll take the initiative to spend your days "vegging out" and partying like a... how does the youth put it these days... "like a savage"?
Yes, you keep being "savage" because the shoe really does fit, doesn't it? The only evolution the human race has experienced has been imposed by us through conditioning. Without that you'd still be crawling around in caves, eating each other for resources and breeding like Viagra-fuelled varmint.
But we needn't worry about a little message in a movie like "Glass", need we? You don't have the attention span to notice it, nor the intellectual capability to comprehend.
We'll just defund the promotional material and distribute a few high profile negative reviews. You just stay asleep, because you know sleep it good. Sleep is nice. Sleep is comfortable.
Because you know as well as I do... the only power you truly have is that which we give you.