Storytelling done right and child acting at its best

Rating: 8/10 (3 September 2015)

The thing about movies with major twists is that the film needs to stand up once you know the end. The Usual Suspects is an engrossing and complex crime story with a great screenplay and acting. The Empire Strikes back is a soaring space opera with iconic dialogue and memorable characters. Seven is a sprawling bore that's so dark it's almost pitch black. And The Sixth Sense is still a surprisingly touching, often horrifying and incredibly clever film. Picking apart Shyamalan's incredibly detailed screenplay for all the little clues about the big twist is so much fun.
The best thing that The Sixth Sense could ever have done was make Vincent and Cole similar cases. A massive misdirect for all who might have otherwise seen it coming, Shyamalan presents you with a doctor who failed one patient and seeks to make it up with his second, to the extent that he's grown distant from everyone. Just that alone makes me respect Shyamalan's storytelling ability. Beautifully shot and directed sequences, with the editing team knowing just when to cut away, are almost gleeful in feeding you hints buried under a seemingly legitimate and normal conduct. Shyamalan's use of the colour red shows beyond a filmmaking passion – it's attention to detail in a story he had to see done right. Shyamalan also has key focus for directing horror – sudden blasts of jolting music and dramatic reveals of ghosts and their life-claiming injuries are just horror done right. I was just as terrified as Cole. But Shyamalan also has a flair for directing some of the most tender scenes in the film – a funeral where Cole reveals the deceased girl's cause of death to her grieving father, and the aforementioned scenes between Cole and his mother could have been directed by Sam Mendes or Frank Darabont, they were so gentle.
Haley Joel Osment has just soared to one of my all time favourite child performances. The Sixth Sense has only confirmed to me that 1999 was a brilliant year for supporting actor performances – Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile, Tom Cruise in Magnolia – but Osment rightfully stood out as one of the year's best. I never doubted for one second that this strange child was one who has been tortured day in and day out by the souls of the dead. His tearful scenes against his disbelieving mother (an equally good Toni Collette) are utterly heartbreaking, as is his quirky behaviour leading up to a horrific incident where he is shut in a crawlspace. As audience members, we wish we could just leap into the TV and protect Cole from all the problems – and Collette does an exceptional job of the protective mother. Bruce Willis anchors the film adequately, but this film is all about Osment.
There are times where the film gets a bit schmaltzy, such as a "happily ever after" scene where Osment is now popular, the lead in the school play and the bully is relegated to "village idiot." I also found a scene where Cole screams "stuttering Stanley" at his teacher to be a relatively silly way to end what was a powerful scene. The final sequence with Willis and his realisation, whilst powerful in the twist department, felt a little too like Ghost to be effective. However, I cannot give The Sixth Sense less than an excellent review, because Osment's acting and Shyamalan's storytelling can earn four stars just between them.