﻿trying to redeem a past mistake

Rating: Null/10 (18 May 2004)

﻿Malcolm Crowe is a child psychiatrist who, at the beginning of the film, has just been awarded a citation for professional excellence by the city of Philadelphia. When a former patient, Vincent, breaks into the house, he learns that his excellent work has not done all the good that he'd hoped, in fact his promise to a young patient that everything would work out alright, has not come true, and results in the young man's suicide. He tries to make sure this will never happen with another patient.
Later that fall, he finds Cole, a boy who is suffering from the same symptoms as Vincent. Cole spends his free time playing in a church, so the ghosts won't frighten him. As Malcolm studies the case further, he finds connections between the two boys, and figures that by helping Cole deal with his problems, surely stemming from his father's abandonment, he can redeem himself from his failure with Vincent.
Eventually he figures that Cole is telling the truth, that he can see beyond what is apparent in this world. It is by allowing him to face his fears, and use the gift he's been given to help the departed rest in peace and comfort those still living, that he can himself live without fear. He doesn't need to hide in either a church or a tent in his bedroom filled with religious statues.
Malcolm didn't think that something glibly promised in a session with Vincent would come to such a drastic conclusion. He didn't think that Cole could actually see dead people, and was suffering from severe pathology and school-age schizophrenia. He didn't think there was any realm beyond the five senses. He wasn't counting on a little boy, like a boy he had counseled years earlier, had a sixth sense that enabled a person to see beyond what is normally perceived, to the world of souls who had not realized that their bodies had died when they had work still to do.
Likewise, I didn't think that the movie would have such a startling conclusion. I hadn't seen it coming, and had trusted that what I'd seen naturally led to the conclusion of Malcolm's restored marriage, since he'd alienated his wife by being obsessed with Cole's case, and find faith in himself, that he was a good doctor who could heal children's troubled minds and really deserved an award for excellence. Without that ending, it would've been a good movie. With it, it was a great movie. If the mind can be tricked in this way, within the span of two hours, it might also be tricked about preconceived ideas about what happens after death, to consider the existence of spirits lost on their way to the afterlife.