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Glass Movie Review (2019) | Unlike Our Usual Superhero Films

Glass Movie appears like a conclusion to the story that was being built all this time by the visionary director M. Night Shyamalan. It chased after its momentum when Split movie was released in the year 2016 by introducing the character of Unbreakable David Dunn (Bruce Willis) in its final moments. Glass movie is a proper gape into the very own universe of Shyamalan, named aptly after the mastermind of its origin tale – Mr. Glass, Elijah Price portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson.

The movie is unlike our every day superhero flick that we all have grown so accustomed to watching. It does not have an eye candy feel to it or an ingratiating urge to sate the audience with visual effects, no. It might be missing your daily dose of theatrics, yes. But it is audacious, breathing defyingly in a world where everyone is after some out-of-the-box heroics. Anything lesser and it would be torn apart with sheer criticism for its mere existence.

The Direction of Glass Movie

Talking about the direction of the movie, M. Night Shyamalan does things differently. It is so obvious through shots where he chooses to depict fights with close perspectives instead of going for wider angle shots so as to not give the spectators a full visual on what’s happening. For some, this might appear as a hiccup served on a platter, but that’s ingenious I would say. For there are so many apparent shots floating around nowadays that if you don’t do something different, it all feels kind of same.

M. Night Shyamalan calls for close-ups when a character is held. It makes you get under the skin of that persona and feel those real unadulterated vibes the man in action is feeling. The fear becomes real. The tension is palpable. I think that’s immensely powerful. He had a story forever housed in his mind, and he didn’t care at what cost he narrated it.

all Glass movie characters

Yes, it hit at a time where full-frontal action literally defines the success rate of a movie, but it still is capable of standing on its own. That being said this part of the universe is a tad dark, grim and serious about its entities.

The Influence of Comics (Spoilers)

Glass movie often talks about how comic books have shaped us and how fantasy is an integral part of our life. How it helps us dream and create a possibility of a world we imagine. Unfortunately, a lot of the screenplay feels out of place. It has a misplaced sense of gravitas at times which feels not right when delivered at certain situations in the movie.

Some sound laughable punched in at junctures where they are totally uncalled for like Elijah suddenly talking about a comic book setup for a showdown. That idea seems deliberate and forced even though revealed in the end as a hoax. It felt out of place in the first place. How did that sound convincing to begin with?

Night Shyamalan is a master of disguise hiding the real truth at the climax, leaving it up for the grabs. While you are thinking that it is an obvious tale, he surprises you with a hammer on your head, that Elijah’s death didn’t go in vain. That it was just the beginning of a story that might go anywhere now. It might as well be still in his skull, but just imagine the possibilities, those meandering alleys it could head toward now. It’s exciting, etcetera, etcetera.

The Theme of Glass Movie

The movie opens up beautifully with the curtains moving away gradually for David Dunn depicting all those lost years in the form of his son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark) who is all grown up and helping his dad be a proper superhero. Then we find the villain trying to have his share of fun by tying up some more victims to be fed to the beast. Introduction of Glass to the story is subtle as well.

They always underestimate the mastermind.

Bruce Willis as David Dunn in Glass movie

The meeting of David and The Beast is apt too, not rushed and, in a way, fated. The realization of each other’s strength feels justified in that split second of a brawl, and the bomb that drops on them both in the form of Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) restraining them to be kept with the mastermind Glass who was already an unmoving subject in their study.

With the trio packed in the same hospital, an unfolding of a story was inevitable. Thus begins the quest of Glass to set up a hero meets villain story for the whole world to witness.

Split Personalities Revisited

How do you see all the personalities of The Horde one by one? It is a genius way woven into the story by Night Shyamalan who chooses to use an insane flashing light that would strobe whenever The Beast tried to make a sudden move.

One by one you could see all the following personalities, portrayed by James McAvoy as they forever try to fight for the “Light”, an abstract term to denote the opening to the outside world, so as to depict who’s in charge.

  1. Dennis
  2. Patricia
  3. Kevin
  4. Hedwig
  5. The Beast
  6. Barry
  7. Orwell
  8. Jade
  9. Ian
  10. Mary Reynolds
  11. Jalin
  12. Norma
  13. Kat
  14. Bernice
  15. Mr. Pritchard
  16. Felida
  17. Ansel
  18. Luke
  19. Goddard
  20. Polly
  21. Samuel
  22. Rakel
  23. Heinreich
  24. B. T.

James McAvoy does them so convincingly too, wearing different personae as if he were someone else altogether a retch ago.

You are fighting for the broke. You found your purpose.

still of James McAvoy and Anya Taylor-Joy in Glass movie

It is amazing what a mere touch of Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy) does to The Beast. She is not afraid of him anymore, and she wishes him to be cured of his condition but ultimately he has to die. That’s how the King Kong was conquered, that’s how every monster was vanquished. The way The Beauty and The Beast quotient plays once again, in the end, could have choked you if it were not for the editing there. It seemed a story was chopped off in a hurry and rushed in to meet the end.

Not a Superhero Card

Ellie is an intriguing character, a doctor by profession who dealt in people who believed themselves to be superheroes, as in delusional. Rejecting our fancies with implausibility, tacking it against science and dressing it up with the drapes of truth, she bursts some bubbles inside.

My work concerns a particular type of delusion of grandeur. It’s a growing field. I specialize in those individuals who believe they are superheroes.

She even convinces the audience of that. That no one is a superhero, that it was nothing but a delusion of the mind. The part that you conjure up to feel good about yourself and your brain has you fooled for you have an uncanny talent that is peerless, it makes you feel you are one. But the sad truth is you aren’t.

What if she were true? She was right after all. What if you take that equation into play and try to see the movie with that rock-solid perspective? Isn’t that a work of a genius then? What if Glass just thinks he is smart? That David just had great reckoning skills, and simply the power of a strong man? What if The Horde was just a messed up brain and that he got lucky with the shotgun shell? What if everything that Ellie claimed was true?

Cinema is a Lie We Choose

So if you inject that truthful serum for a change, and try to see the Glass movie then, you will realize that Elijah, David, and The Horde are all crazy fellows trying to live on their own patches of imagination. That despite Ellie trying to break them they still go on with their dreamy world and end up dissecting each other, tearing each other apart. That the part that plays in the epilogue was nothing but a director feeding us a probable story, him playing the what if card?

It is an intriguing thought, to be honest, and compels you to almost unsee whatever had gone down in those deliberate final moments. You wonder what all didn’t happen, what all did if it did. It peeves you but with a touch of its genius.

Whatever the conclusion is in your head, you can’t change the ultimate fact. That cinema is nothing but a layered overlay. It belies the truth to soothe us into believing all the things we would like to believe. We know that superheroes don’t exist, and we still secretly wish it weren’t so. We have the same logic behind God, and yet we try to abide by our wilful thoughts and call it faith.

This was an origin story the whole time.

Our imagination, our fancies they dictate our will to go on, to feel something that’s out of the ordinary, because we are tired of the mundane. The fact that nothing changes, that everything is stagnant is like a kick to our groin. We can’t wait to write our own stories by ourselves, where men have the power to move mountains not figuratively, and where broken men have the strength to survive in their own crooked taste.

You can order Glass movie from here:

That Sour End

Okay so everything was fine then why do we still end up with a sour flavour in our mouth? Maybe because of the abrupt climax that slays everyone off. The killing, the mass murder at the end took away everything that was built so beautifully hitherto. Why was Night Shyamalan keen on pulling a George R. R. Martin so early?

There was so much we could have done with these characters that felt unexplored. There was a potential overlooked and we could have raced stories thereon. But that’s life as Shyamalan wished to insinuate. If you try to be a superhero in today’s world, that’s the end you might face. There are people who would lance you down with their judging eyes. There are those who would see you die before you bud.

This is not a cartoon. This is the real world.

With an end that seems winking at a sequel, even though it was claimed to be a three part franchise, shoots some questions in your head. Is Shyamalan willing to move on to a different project? Does he wish to give the reins of his universe to someone else? Did he go too early for a kill?

The Final Verdict

You gotta give it to him though. M. Night Shyamalan is not afraid to part with his characters. He is ballsy. He wishes to experiment even though he knows what it could do to him. In all his career span, you can see tons of experimentation, many that didn’t fare well. And yet he doesn’t let it dictate the choices he made. For that, I give him full points.

If only Glass movie was more exciting, and not a little bland as it seemed, toward the end, and would have leveraged its characters or horror, for instance, like it did in the prequel, it would have been a hell of a crazy ride. Anyways Glass movie is still good but it could have been better.

Check out the trailer of Glass movie here:














  • Good Direction
  • Great Plot
  • Acting by the cast
  • Plot Twist
  • James McAvoy


  • Ends up too quickly
  • Characters are not leveraged
  • Less on theatrics
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