The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 185 Days to go: 128
Movie #253: The Sixth Sense
When you come across a movie like The Sixth Sense, an instant legend for its shocking twist ending, it can be difficult to imagine watching it again once you know the trick. It’s like the ultimate spoilery movie, and nobody wants you to talk about it at all lest you give something away to someone who hasn’t seen it yet. In my entire life, I’ve only come across two films like that, in which the whole world seemed to be buzzing about the end of a film without actually revealing what that end was. The Crying Game was the first one. The Sixth Sense was the other. I’ve never actually seen The Crying Game — it was just a smidge before my time — but I’ve watched The Sixth Sense a bunch.
The Sixth Sense has a big reveal at the end, it’s true, but it’s structured in such a way that even knowing the trick beforehand doesn’t diminish the effect of watching the film. Indeed, multiple viewings can be used to appreciate the way the film is structured, intentionally withholding, intentionally opaque, in order to keep the whole truth at bay. Like the way no one ever looks directly at or interacts with Malcolm (Bruce Willis) except for Cole (Haley Joel Osment). Or the way Malcolm’s never shown getting from place to place. He’s simply in the restaurant or with Cole or at his desk, never in transit.
The movie is also beautifully, eerily atmospheric. Every shot, every note of the score, every whispered line of dialogue is calculated to create an ominous tone. More than any kind of traditional horror or slasher flick, this film’s portentous nature is incredibly frightening. The air is tense with the anticipation of what may happen next, even though a large swath of the film doesn’t reveal any ghosts at all. It’s like the Jaws method of suspense filmmaking.
Separate from that, I really love Toni Collette here as Cole’s mom. More and more each time I watch it, in fact. She’s so tough, so protective, so hard, and yet so vulnerable and so scared. She is so fierce and so loving, and the scene when Cole tells her about her mother is as touching as they come. Plus she wraps her mouth around a gnarly Philadelphia accent in an unexpected and delightful way. It’s a lovely, layered, understated performance, and I think it holds the whole film together emotionally in a way that just the fear can not.
It can’t be easy to be M. Night Shyamalan. The Sixth Sense was so huge, so revered, that the expectations for all his subsequent work — at least those first several projects — were impossibly high. And no, he hasn’t come close to meeting them, even as the bar has gotten progressively lower. But even if the only great thing he does in his career is this movie, it’s still a really great movie. Most people don’t even get one great thing.
Viable Option 