beautifully chilling

Rating: 9/10 (25 March 2003)

shyamalan has crafted a beautiful film here, that's more chilling than scary. You all know the story by know, and yes, there are then thousand plot holes, but it really doesn't matter when you have film-making of this standard. The direction and score go hand in hand perfectly. While the actors all give their best, most notably toni collette and haley joel osment. Osment is the films heart, with a performance easily up there as one of cinema's best. The scariest thing in the film is how the kid manages to convey his emotions so realistically. When he is scared in the movie, he genuinely looks scared, and that is no easy feat to do with a big camera pointing in your face. Bruce Willis does a good job, proving that he can actually act very well when he wants to. But he is outshone by osment, which is probably best for the movie anyway. The plot is strong, and unwinds at it's own crawling pace, but it pay's off in the end with a touching finale that makes you want to watch the whole film again. And not many films do that.