Review of The Sixth Sense (1999) by Nick O — 01 May 2013

There were a million boring ways for M. Night Shyamalan to turn every trick of "The Sixth Sense" to cornerstone pieces of a larger puzzle that snapped into place. Would have made for great re-watch material, but I'm not sure I'd pass Shyamalan's moody crash course with even a duster in hand. For lack of better words, "The Sixth Sense" emotionally killed me. Through superficial terror and skin-searing tremors, its goosebumps feel those of a hungry artist, slaves in harmony and fear, the way Spielberg could once carve sympathy in the everyday darkness of the human soul.

It isn't, ostensibly, a mystery, but a sort of ageless trivia following a journeyed heartbreak. Found in the adage of struggling mama bear Lynn Sear (Toni Collette) and quiet outcast of her son Cole (Haley Joel Osment, jaw-dropping), the latter starts to receive daily calls from child psychologist Malcom Crowe (Bruce Willis). Split between the redemption of curing Cole and playing house with wife Anna (Olivia Williams), Malcom, as "The Sixth Sense" goes on, may act as hapless newcomer for his patient's sake but with Anna the attitude of a man with a secret. We feel something, too. Lynn's monster dedication to her cub could easily have come in that of normal elementary attention, and there wouldn't have been any doubt that the marks on Cole's wrist were not indeed inflicted by her. They take new meaning only when her anger is versed at the lack of immediate endgame that comes with mental diagnoses.

But is it ever crushing. Shyamalan in (almost) every frame is hidden behind the camera in flawless sobriety, that he might as well be busy weeping behind the scenes. The personal liaison of "The Sixth Sense" will push you just about over the edge, where most of Shyamalan's film seems to have found a supernatural regret. It's not in the completion of the story that brings solitude. The melancholic afterglow is enough to run the train forward without drilling it into the ground. The continuity of existence in lasting love, and belief that the grass is always greener on the other end of memories, doesn't commit to reality, but rather alienates it. It's a theory unto itself, to waste time by spending it, but able also to open the sensation in four eyes wide shut.