chavel’s review published on Letterboxd:
It takes an extra sense of subtlety and calibration to have come up with a horror film oozing with heart, as what M. Night Shyamalan did with The Sixth Sense. Bruce Willis is a child psychologist who loves his jeweler wife Olivia Williams as demonstrated in the first scene, they share a scary encounter with a grown man who declares to be a failed patient. If there is anything Willis, as Dr. Malcolm Crowe, is haunted by it is his self-own of failure.
Later in the year, Malcolm takes on extra hours duty in treating young troubled boy Cole (Haley Joel Osment) who is self-isolating and anxious, but worse, seems to be inflicted by abuse and lacerations—and it’s clear that his worried mother (Toni Collette) is not the transgressor. No, the boy has a very unique secret that he keeps to himself, and only after built trust does he share it with Malcolm.
“I see dead people.”
Malcolm takes it as his imperative that he helps stop the hallucinations, the paranoia, the possible schizophrenia. Then again, what if Cole is telling the truth?
All of it is directed with such a delicate hand by Shyamalan. Every scene is important for what it contains and doesn’t contain. With everything so measured, Shyamalan is able to play misdirection with his audience and have us imagine our own diagnostic takes. Curious how the shrink is losing his wife’s confidence, whom in his eyes believes his wife is courting with infidelity, and discloses his fears to the boy. All of it leading to a whopper ending that takes our breath away.
Has there ever been another blockbuster that was as psychologically sensistive and astute as The Sixth Sense, as it piques our concern over a little boy trying to overcome the terror and restlessness that has demoralized him? The trust that the boy makes with Dr. Malcolm is poignant, one that begins shaky until there is a trusted bond to unleash secrets, concerns, hang-ups.
When Cole attends a funeral of a dead girl, we figure he is using his gift—previously seen as a curse—into a charitable action in order to give necessary closure to a grieving father. Cole has learned of a purpose to his existence, and Dr. Malcolm can pass on knowing that he given this little boy the courage to carry on, forever, on his own.
