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"I see dead people!"--The Sixth Sense

© Elizabeth Burton

Director/Writer: M. Night Shyamalan

Cast: Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams, Donnie Wahlberg

Award-winning child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is shot in his own bedroom by a suicidal former patient, Vincent Gray (Donnie Wahlberg) who accuses him of abandonment before killing himself. When another child, eight-year-old Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), appears with the same symptoms, Crowe is determined to atone for his possible sins of omission by helping the boy overcome his terror and anxiety.

But Cole's problems are psychic, not psychological. He is surrounded by the spirits of those who have died violently at their own hands or those of others. What troubles him even more is his inability to talk about what he sees with the adults who claim to want to help him--until he meets and comes to trust Malcolm Crowe. But Crowe cannot see the restless dead, either. Can he accept that Cole does or should he adhere to the rules that say the boy's visions are delusion rather than the dead?

By now, everyone knows that there is a Twilight Zone twist at the conclusion of M. Night Shyamalan's tale of restless ghosts and the dangers of becoming too committed to the accepted definitions of reality. If you're really unlucky, some sadist has already told you what that twist is--and should be shot. Half the fun of watching this movie is watching it a second time to catch what you missed, the deliberate clues planted by Shyamalan that hint at what is to come.

Whether Osment actually deserved a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination is neither here nor there. The 11-year-old does an excellent job portraying the haunted third-grader who must eventually choose whether to continue to flee his unwanted gift or use it to help his intrusive visitors--and the living they left behind. Willis, too, gives a creditable performance, one much more low-key than usual, as the troubled psychologist forced to confront himself. In more ways than one.

Shyamalan, who both wrote and directed The Sixth Sense, has obviously studied his Hitchcock. This is a film full of suspense, not shock, despite the often gruesomely disfigured spooks that wander in and out. They are frightening to us because they are frightening to Core, not because they actually do any harm. Production designer Larry Fulton's sets enhance the child's sense of entrapment by providing narrow hallways and small, cramped rooms. Even when there are large spaces, Cole invariably ends up confined somehow, often just when he seems about to escape his burden.