The Sixth Sense
**
Cinema
Releases - November 12, 1999
Rated on a 4-star
scale. USA. Written and directed by M Night Shyamalan. Starring Bruce Willis,
Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Trevor Morgan, Olivia Williams, Donnie
Wahlberg.
Plod by plod and con for con, M Night Shyamalan's
"The Sixth Sense" is constructed with all the substance of
a circular argument. One of the characters in this pointless movie has
supernatural visions, and audience members are sharing the affliction --
unfathomably, Stateside box-office has already made the piece one of the
biggest hits of all time, and there is talk of Oscar
recognition.
The film opens with child psychiatrist Malcolm
Crowe (Bruce Willis) being shot by a former patient he failed to help. One
year later the distressed doctor gets back in the saddle, hoping he'll find
catharsis if he can cure a boy with similar problems to those of the gunman.
Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) is the intense nine-year-old in question, whose
constantly distant and distressed demeanour baffles his lone mother and provides
ammunition for school bullies. There are severe wounds all over his body,
but few clues as to who or what could be abusing him. He is quiet and
well-mannered by American standards, but has pages of profane scrawling stashed
in bedroom cupboards. Why?
The tot doesn't want to discuss anything with
Dr Crowe, so the shrink must win Cole's trust before getting to any secrets.
As he moves closer to this goal, the atmosphere of "The Sixth Sense" gets
more ominous, with both initial structural framework and specific shots taken
straight from "The Exorcist". Another similarity with that 1973 classic is
a late-revealed spiritual plot point -- Cole is aware of the presence of
the dead. "I see them all the time," he says, "walking around like regular
people. Do they want me to do things for them?"
It's a slow journey to that development, one which
is intended as something of a surprise, even though the film's advertising
treats it as the set-up. The actual main material involves us with careful
mood changes in the sound mix and the performances, so while Willis and Osment
essentially play the same scene over and over, they delicately alter the
levels of confidence, honesty and familiarity in their eyes and voices to
make the repetition less than obvious. They make such a positive impression
I can overlook the inappropriate work of Toni Collette, who, as Cole's mother,
looks and sounds like a hooker in a 1970s blaxploitation
flick.
The rhythm of "The Sixth Sense" points to a grand,
ghoulish conclusion. Scenes get increasingly spookier, with rooms getting
colder, people looking more worried and more spectres emerging. The film
becomes overwhelmingly anticipant... And then nothing happens. The build-up
and the pay-off truly belong in different movies, as the ghost story which
writer-director Shyamalan has subtly developed throughout is crudely cut
short when he tries to capitalise on our non-existent emotional involvement
with the McGuffin.
Without revealing it, I can say that this conclusion
is one of the worst I've ever seen. It abandons the problem we'd been waiting
two hours to see resolved. It invalidates the logistical possibility for
the two main characters to have been introduced to each other, or for one
of them to have been functioning at all outside the on-screen moments so
delicately constructed around him.
If it had been a 30-minute short, the empty
self-contradiction of "The Sixth Sense" might have come across as intriguingly
enigmatic. As a feature, it's a nonsensical waste of time that embarrasses
itself by being released on the same day as "Fight Club". The twist in that
brilliant film provides psychological depth to a study of modern madness.
Here, the surprise is a distraction, as the filmmakers run from their victims
toward the bank.
COPYRIGHT© 1999 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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