The Sixth Sense (1999)

There's something to be said for the art of the twist ending. A really good plot twist towards the end of a film, no matter the genre, can make repeat viewings incredibly insightful and very rewarding which in my mind makes a film more valuable. I personally love plot twists in the course of watching a film for the first time and how they often make me look for the trail of breadcrumbs filmmakers leave throughout their work.

One of the films most renowned for its twist in modern times is M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense. When this came out in 1999, everybody ate it up (at least from what the box office numbers show). It catapulted Shyamalan to the front page of filmmaking, and for good reason. This is a really well-constructed supernaturally-driven drama with some horror elements.

Here's the secret to this film, though, and why the twist works so well: The Sixth Sense has a really keen understanding of what it is as a film. It realizes that its content does not seem crazily horrifying at a first glance, so it gives us an innocent, frightened perspective character in Haley Joel Osment's Cole Sear. Osment's performance is incredibly layered for any age, let alone often-maligned child actors, and because he is so true to that frightened perspective we often see through his eyes and begin to understand why Cole is so terrified of the things happening on screen, thereby heightening our own thrills and anxiousness.

Osment contrasts perfectly with Bruce Willis's Malcolm Crowe, a child psychiatrist who helps Cole. Crowe's scenes have a much more grounded tone than Cole's, even further making the audience wonder what on earth is going on in the film. Willis also gives a fine performance that is much more subdued than what I've seen of him otherwise, but this just adds to the film's sense of atmosphere.

That's what I'm seeing from Shyamalan's direction here: an awareness of what the audience is feeling at any particular moment in the film. There's this underlying sense for most of the film that it's just one big puzzle just waiting to be solved. Shyamalan doesn't leave a lot of clues and those present are incredibly subtle, making the twist ending that much more unexpected. Truth be told, it is not really that profound of a twist; I've seen far more intriguing and surprising in other films. What sets The Sixth Sense apart though is how it makes Cole and Crowe's path's crossing even more profound and gives the entire film an "a-ha" moment. Suddenly, all that uneasiness we feel as the audience for the majority of the film is explained. It's not all tied up in a bow, but it does its job of adding layers to the film really, really well; in fact, if everything worked out perfectly, the film would be so much worse off because it wouldn't be nearly as grounded as it is.

So, The Sixth Sense isn't the scariest thing on earth. That's OK. Completely. Because Shyamalan knows that we're expecting a horror flick, he decides that the way to make us the most uneasy is give us anything but the typical genre fare; instead, we get an artistic, deep film that explores a unique relationship with some occasional thrills. The resulting product is something that feels well-realized and complete, but that's only after the credits begin to roll; before, it can seem like it's aimlessly wandering at times. Just know that the reward for watching all the way through is incredibly high.

My recommendation: Definitely watch it. 

My grade: 89