Copyright © 1999 by Michael Segers, All rights reserved
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Check out The Sixth Sense
Remember the story of Goldilocks and the three bears? One bowl of porridge was too hot, one was too cold, and the third was just right. One mattress was too hard, one was too soft, and one was just right. As I walked out of the showing of The Sixth Sense, the third horror film I’ve seen in three weeks, I thought of the lady and the bears. Hollywood has finally gotten a horror movie just right.
Two weeks ago, I almost lost control during The Haunting. I thought I was going to giggle in spite of myself. The star of that film was a haunted house so out of control that it could have been played by Robin Williams. Nothing was left to the imagination, not that the plot really gave us much to imagine. Last week, The Blair Witch Project could have scared the dickens out of me, if it had given me just a little more to go on. In The Project, we hardly know where or how to start imagining.
But this week, in what seems the most likely candidate of the three for commercial and critical success, The Sixth Sense manages to mess with our minds with all kinds of subtle what-ifs while showing us enough of what the protagonist sees that we can go along with it. There are quite a few twists and turns in this tale of Cole, a troubled boy (Haley Joel Osment), and Dr. Malcolm Crowe, an equally troubled psychotherapist (Bruce Willis). The film opens with a confrontation between Crowe, a distinguished child psychologist, and a former patient (Donnie Wahlberg).
Then, the film jumps ahead some months to the time when Crowe begins to treat Cole. The audience does not learn Cole’s secret until some time into the film, but the previews have given it away: he sees dead people in our midst. Are they really there, or aren’t they? Although we are allowed to see them also, we don’t know for a while whether we are seeing dead people or just Cole’s hallucinations.
The film starts with a terrible scene that ends in a suicide. I wish I could say that it maintains that intensity throughout, but it doesn’t. Director/scriptwriter M. Night Shyamalan gets bogged down at times, but his actors come through for him. Young Osment gives probably the best performance I have ever seen by a child actor, not only reacting but also acting, creating a believable film presence in a rather unlikely role, showing both the strength and the weakness that would make him chosen for such a terrible gift. Bruce Willis’s performance is admirably restrained, and he gets through a movie without a weapon. The therapy sessions with these two are much more believable and intense than the contrived sessions between Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Anthony Hopkins in Instinct. Toni Collette as Cole’s mother Lynn works wonders with the little she has to work with. Donnie Wahlberg is on screen for just a few minutes, but they are some of the most memorable moments you will see in any film this summer.
There is a vital difference between this film and the other two horror offerings of this summer. In The Haunting, there is not enough characterization for us really to care about what happens to the people in the nutty old house. In The Blair Witch Project, for me, at least, the characters are so obnoxious that I root for the witch—who/whatever it is. But Malcolm and Cole are as sympathetic as any characters you’ll find on screen this summer. We care about them, we care what happens to them, thanks to a finely-tuned script and outstanding performances. As in the old television series, The Honeymooners, there is an unspoken loss and regret that Malcolm, who so loves children, and his wife Anna (Olivia Williams, to whom the script leaves nothing to work with) do not have any. In Lynn and Cole’s fatherless, husbandless household, Lynn speaks to Cole about their relationship not working out in terms that suggest the apparently failed relationship between Anna and Malcolm. Finally, young Cole becomes a sort of therapist for the ghosts who are not as threatening as they are needy.
The strange thing about The Sixth Sense is that, of the three films, it was the only one that made me look away from the screen at especially intense moments (although, in order to report the whole truth to you, I made myself look back). And yet, it was one of the very few films that has ever—nothing but the truth—brought tears to my eyes. The film closes with a jolting revelation—but, in its richly textured world, it is honest, consistent, and logical. I walked out of the theater feeling very happy to have seen this film, emotionally and mentally, one of the most satisfying films I’ve ever seen. And, oh yes, don’t forget, it is scary.
Ultimately, this film transcends its "horror film" genre. It works as a horror film, but it is a beautiful piece of work, depending on development of character, superb acting and a well-crafted script rather than a lot of high-priced, high-tech special effects. It scares us, it makes us think, it makes us feel, and it just may have something to say about truth and illusion, death and life. But, don’t let me scare you away. It’s a cool way to spend a hot afternoon. Like the best films and greatest works of all the arts, it is a film finally about love.
For those who care about such things, I counted three dirty words, not the infamous word that is almost a star in Summer of Sam and The Blair Witch Project. There is a shower scene, but it is sad and discreet, with a steamy shower door keeping the scene from being too steamy.
The first week of August includes the anniversaries of two real life horrors, the beginning of the atomic age and the end of the Watergate scandal with the resignation of Richard Nixon. In one paragraph at the end of a movie review, I am not going to get into the moral issues of the specific event with which we mark the beginning of the atomic age, the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. Regardless of blame, regardless of anything, that bomb opened a new door to Hell for the human race. One of the most poignant and meaningful responses to that event that I have ever read is at:
http://www.soon.org.uk/page3.htm
President Nixon resigned only twenty-five years ago, and I still remember vividly that I was sipping a beer in a little bar in Greenwich Village where there didn’t seem to be many Nixon sympathizers. The mood was strangely subdued. Many of us in that dark room had faced our own demons and defeats. The names of the bizarre characters and the chronology of the happenings, however, have been blurred by the years, even though there were many references to Watergate earlier this year when we faced our latest scandal. Was it our latest scandal, or was it once again a chance to learn that somehow our government can keep on functioning, even if those who govern are less than functional? Here is a great review of those not so great events of a quarter century ago:
http://vcepolitics.com/wgate.htm
But, back to The Sixth Sense, a horror film that was neither too hot nor too cold, too hard nor too soft. Just right, just too good to be dismissed as just a horror film. Goldilocks would have liked it, and so will you, your gray-locked reviewer hopes. Keep your feet dry, your heart full of noble thoughts, and yourself open to the needs of folks whom you may not even imagine have needs.