The Sixth Sense

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Starring Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams, Haley Joel Osment
USA, 1999
Rated PG-13 (disturbing, intense images, mild profanity)

C+

DO THE TWIST
The Sixth Sense could have easily become a disaster. First, we have Bruce Willis in a leading role and when one glances at his résumé, one can conclude that his acting ability has not yet been fully witnessed. Second, the movie is a horror film and genre pictures tend to go wrong. The Sixth Sense is a satisfying psychological thriller that succeeds in making us forget Bruce Willis’ career missteps and the limitations of the horror genre- it is fun and scary and not only features Willis at his subtle best, but Bogus’ precocious young actor, Haley Joel Osment, in a bravura performance.

Set in an eerie Philadelphia, The Sixth Sense revolves around Cole Sear (Osment), a young boy who is convinced he is a freak because he is a social outcast and has a dark secret he refuses to share with anyone, especially his poor single-mother (Toni Collette). Malcolm Crowe (Willis), an award-winning child psychiatrist, a year after being wounded by a former patient, comes to help Cole battle his fears. The boy is meek, pale, and seems to be always hiding from someone or something. He seems to be very much like the former patient who shot at Malcolm the year before, and because Malcolm feels he failed that patient, he thinks he can correct his mistakes by helping this young boy with his problems. Cole takes sanctuary in churches and collects religious figures in his room. Immediately, there is a friendly connection between Cole and Malcolm, and both seem to know each other’s thoughts and feelings. (This is aided by a wonderful chemistry between Willis and Osment.) We soon discover that Cole constantly hears voices. He, not wishing to further torture his mother with worries, keeps these voices a secret, but he finally opens up to Malcolm.

Malcolm, meanwhile, is finding it very difficult to connect with his wife. He feels estranged and distant from her and the problem worsens when he becomes deeply involved in Cole’s case. In a series of unsettling images, we learn that Cole sees dead people, and Malcolm encourages him to help these spirits communicate with the living. Cole sees what adults cannot: these corpses who wander the world lost- neither in life or completely in death.

Bruce Willis, while his performance is no great miracle of acting, does not underestimate the talents of his co-star Osment, which makes their on-screen, close relationship work. Osment’s performance gives Cole a timid, frightened aura, and while his turn as the tortured child has its moments of clumsiness and overdone areas, he is very effective and outshines all the rest of the cast. Tak Fujimoto, the film’s cinematographer, has worked on his share of horror films (Beloved, The Silence of the Lambs), and his efforts give The Sixth Sense a chillingly dark, cold atmosphere.

The ballyhooed surprise ending is one of the reasons to see the movie. Without it, the movie would be flat and disappointing. The Sixth Sense fails in a sense because it so completely revolves around its ending, and writer-director M. Night Shyamalan is obviously trying to avoid any giveaways of the surprise throughout the film. The movie is rather tedious if you already know the twist, and it chuckles at its own wit. Are movies only their shocking endings? They shouldn’t be. A movie, to be great, must keep intelligence and humanity in sight throughout its duration. If the film was anything brilliant prior to its ending, I would be screaming from the rooftops its wit. The Sixth Sense astonishes us, yes, but only at the end, and while it’s a great work of atmosphere, the movie can’t be much more than a one-time thrill ride.

What’s likable in the film is that Shyamalan, a talented young director, takes us to a place where we think we know what note the movie is going to end on, and in the final sequence, he makes a quick shift to a completely different, unpredictable closure. Cole is a little boy who has been given the strange, uncomfortable gift of seeing the deceased, who walk around as if they were alive with holes in their heads, slits on their wrists, charred skin, and blood-drenched bodies, and his abnormal, supernatural experiences with these ghosts makes for simple, supernatural fun, but an ultimately forgettable flick.

By Andrew Chan

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