Amazon.com Essentials:
"I see dead people," whispers little Cole Sear (Haley Joel
Osment),
scared to affirm what is to him now a daily occurrence. This peaked
9-year old, already hypersensitive to begin with, is now being
haunted
by seemingly malevolent spirits. Child psychologist Malcolm Crowe
(Bruce
Willis) is trying to find out what's triggering Cole's visions, but
what
appears to be a psychological manifestation turns out to be
frighteningly
real. It might be enough to scare off a lesser man, but for Malcolm
it's
personal--several months before, he was accosted and shot by an
unhinged
patient, who then turned the gun on himself. Since then, Malcolm has
been in
turmoil--he and his wife (Olivia Williams) are barely speaking, and
his life
has taken an aimless turn. Having failed his loved ones and himself,
he's
not about to give up on Cole.
This third feature by M. Night Shyamalan sets itself up as a
thriller,
poised on the brink of delivering monstrous scares, but gradually
evolves
into more of a psychological drama with supernatural undertones.
Many
critics faulted the film for being mawkish and New Age-y, but no
matter how
you slice it, this is one mightily effective piece of filmmaking.
The bare
bones of the story are basic enough, but the moody atmosphere
created by
Shyamalan and cinematographer Tak Fujimoto made this one of the
creepiest
pictures of 1999, forsaking excessive gore for a sinisterly
simple
feeling of chilly otherworldliness. Willis is in his strong, silent
type
mode here, and gives the film wholly over to Osment, whose crumpled
face and
big eyes convey a child too wise for his years; his scenes with his
mother
(Toni Collette) are small, heartbreaking marvels. And even if you
figure out
the film's surprise ending, it packs an amazingly emotional wallop
when it
comes, and will have you racing to watch the movie again with a new
perspective. You may be able to shake off the sentimentality of The Sixth Sense,
but its
craftsmanship and atmosphere will stay with you for days. --Mark
Englehart
