Surprisingly coherent, effective movie

Rating: 8/10 (16 August 1999)

The ending was a real surprise to me anyway, and to my mind involves far less cheating than many final twists of this type; even thematically, it's fairly consistent with the movie's surprisingly consistent tone of troubled concentration. The performances all contribute ably to this atmosphere of quivering melancholy; certainly the dialogue is heavy-handed at times, and although the contrast of the kid's visions and Willis'	personal pain is valid in thematic terms and broadly successful as melodrama, it also lends itself to a lot of portentous soul-searching and wallowing (which admittedly looks better when you think back on the thing with the hindsight of knowing where it's going). The movie marshals its shock effects wisely and for maximum impact, and in the post-funeral scene among others achieves an almost Blair Witch-like sense of unbearable apprehension, imminent trauma and desire to run out of the theater. Still, its commercial calculations make it ultimately less interesting than that film.