M. Night Shyamalan’s “Glass” Review – A Superhero Drama

Elijah Price: I assume you were sent here to be an avenging angel.

How much do you want to avenge us?

[The Beast yells loudly]

Elijah Price: Well, that sounds like the bad guys teaming up.

This is the quote from M. Night Shyamalan’s thriller “Glass”, and it is part of the dialogue between two super-powered beings, Elijah Price, a terrorist, better, nicknamed daemonic Mr Glass (Samuel L. Jackson), and the Beast, one of the 24 personalities of Kevin Wendell Mr. Crumb (James McAvoy), serial killer with dissociative identity disorder. And what if these powerful villains with God complex and their enemy, the “Overseer” David Dunn (Bruce Williams), the guy who wants to save Philadelphia from them, will all be kept together in a psychiatric hospital?

This is a story of thriller “Glass” (2019), the ending of the kind of own-brand superhero trilogy about villains Kevin Crumb and Mr. Glass and David Dunn, the protagonist of “Unbreakable” (2000), the lone avenger who has once survived a horrifying train crash and realized he is invincible. However, “Glass” is much more than an entertaining movie about supernatural villains and avengers to stream on weekends instead of gambling BetAmo or rewatching “Game of Thrones”. It’s a brutal yet touching story about human nature, mental illness, and the power of acceptance and positive thinking.

The moment when Kevin Wendell Crumb practically dies in the arms of his former victim Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) with the words that it’s good to be in the light symbolizes Kevin’s victory over his multiple personalities and most of all over the personality of the violent Beast and “Horde”. It is the victory, albeit posthumous, of an unfortunate and pure of heart traumatized little boy who was so weak that he invented powerful protectors for himself. Played by Samuel Jackson, the maniac Mr. Glass is also a personality with many shades, and above all a true genius, inventor, engineer, and manipulator. He is physically weak, and suffers since childhood from brittle bones, for which he is forced to ride in a wheelchair, but can think brilliantly.

Well, Casey Cook played a big part in this whole story too. Like Kevin, she was abused by her uncle as a child and lost her father early on. Her trauma plus her hunter father’s upbringing has made her a little different. because she knows how to behave in these situations. In general, the movie makes you think about many things, and above all about the duality of human nature.

David Dunn in the movie is a kind of hero, a brave man, but whether the lynching, which David arranged, is justified if legal norms are violated. It is amazing how throughout the movie we experience different feelings for all the characters, sometimes even sympathy, as in the situation when the talented and intelligent Elijah, an inmate in a mental institution, is bullied by an insolent nurse. Endowed with amazing intelligence, he was deprived of good health from birth and forced to limit his abilities by physical weakness, which did not prevent him from planning terrorist attacks. The physical ailment and the feeling of being different forced him to constantly become smarter, and more cunning.

Where is actually the line between insanity and normality? One of the main characters of the movie, psychiatrist Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) is also a positive and negative character at the same time. On the one hand, she is a positive character, an educated woman who helps the inmates in the mental institution and just wants to persuade Dunn, Crumb, and Mr. Glass that they don’t have any superpowers. On the other hand, she is relentless as an authority and is far more concerned with public order and safety than with the psychological state of individuals.

Through the power of one’s mind and thoughts, one can survive bullying and trauma and overcome one’s weaknesses. From this point of view, Casey is to some extent the main superhuman in the movie, she survived cruelty and violence, the loss of a loved one, but she survived the violence and found a way to fight back against her abuser. In doing so, she was able to preserve her mental health, not become embittered and consider the serial killer with multiple personalities as a human being and rethink her life. „Glass“ is a story about comic-book heroism and the power of positive thinking and love and is therefore worth watching.