The Sixth Sense

The Sixth Sense is a movie that will defy all of your expectations and leave you ready to watch all over again as soon as it ends. The movie begins with Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) and his wife Anna celebrating an accomplishment. Crowe is a renowned child psychologist and is being recognized by the mayor, which Anna points out is very honorable especially since his work is number one in his life, even ahead of herself. Their evening is cut short as their house is broken into by a former patient of Crowe’s-Vincent-who claims Crowe failed him. He shoots Crowe and then himself, but the story picks up next fall with Crowe taking on a new patient. Crowe is not used to failure as we can see by the fact that he was being given such an esteemed award, but also because the new patient Crowe takes on bears a striking resemblance to that of Vincent’s. He is clearly very hung up on this particular case, and not only wants to understand how he went wrong, but wants to fix that. His new patient is Cole Sears (Haley Joel Osment), and we get to watch as Crowe tries to understand Cole and help him in the way he could not help Vincent. As the title suggests though, the case is not exactly the usual case a psychologist would encounter- and the journey this film will you take you on is more than worthwhile.

The Sixth Sense defies expectations in two big ways. First off, this movie defies expectations is in the way it is presented. Without knowing the title, you would probably process this movie as a thriller or a psychological film until about halfway through (when a chilling revelation is revealed) because any scary elements prior are not substantial enough to classify the movie as a horror movie. In the beginning of the movie a house is broken into but there’s no suspense about where the person is or what their intentions are. There is scene early on where all of the cabinets and drawers open in the kitchen after Cole’s mom leaves the room but because nothing else is going on like suspenseful music you aren’t scared. Most movies that are primarily about ghosts are presented as such. You know right from the beginning that there’s something paranormal going on, and the music is getting louder and louder or there’s a creepy rendition of a child’s nursery rhyme. They also follow a fairly rigid plot line: Generally, a family movies into a new home, the kids sense the ghost and are afraid, the family tries to fight the ghost, they hire ghost experts, and eventually engage in a final battle which they win and thus get rid of the ghosts. This wraps everything up nicely, but the characters in this film are not always logical, and generally leave you yelling at the screen as you predict each coming move. In The Sixth Sense, the plot is easy to follow but not so much so that you’re predicting the next move. For this reason, the movie is much more scary in certain instances than your typical horror movie. You’re able to understand what is about to happen, like that when the thermostat drops there will be a ghost, but you are not able to predict how that ghost will interact with the main character, and instead of yelling at the screen because the main character is about to die, you’re sitting on the edge of you seat wondering what will happen next. Since this is also happens more towards the middle of the movie, instead of losing interest as the movie goes on which can sometimes happen, you are gaining interest; you are literally being fed more and more information up until the very last frame.

The second way this movie challenges expectations is that it is a movie targeted towards adults but the main character is a child. This can be risky because often actors use past experiences and emotions to channel their acting, but with such a young child they may have trouble doing so since they have not experienced nearly as much as an adult actor would have. In this movie, Osment is required to depict emotions that might be hard to conjure up out of nowhere. It is not all that hard to act happy or react to situations or people around you like children do in television sitcoms, but for Osment to be the main character and have the most lines is very difficult. He has to convey emotions like fear and sadness to a point where the audience is going to believe he is truly feeling those things, and he does it so well you almost wonder if he went through experiences similar to these before. There is a part in the movie where Cole is scared of a ghost, and he runs to his mom. She comments that he’s so scared he’s shaking, and the line is almost redundant because the fear is so evident on his face that you probably already assumed he was. There are so many instances where he conveys such heavy emotion and for a child to do that was simply awe inspiring.

All in all, this is the type of movie experience that I would highly recommend. You will be wondering the entire time if Malcolm will succeed in helping Cole to not be scared anymore, as well as wondering if Malcolm will be able to fix his marriage, and if Cole will ever be comfortable talking to his mom. You will become emotionally invested in each character, and you will be absolutely mystified by the plot twists that are thrown at you. The Sixth Sense will defy your expectations and leave you on the edge of your seat until the very last frame.