My First 'Discovered' Director

Rating: 9/10 (11 June 2019)

Obviously, there is no way for me to be objective about a film that was a part of my awakening as a cinephile, but it wasn't just a subjective emotion that made this film attractive to a young audience member like myself.
The acting in the film is top notch. Haley Joel Osment and Toni Collette (Hereditary) both received best performance nominations at the Academy awards and both deserved them. Even Bruce Willis, in a very reserved role, pondering and silently observing, does a remarkably good job bringing a sense of the character's reality to the screen.
Although the cast is small and upon re-watching, the film feels anemic at times, it is only when you know the story and are watching for it that you sense that we aren't seeing reality all of the time. I place the credit for that feat on the actors for creating expressions of these characters that would not allow you to think of them as anything except real people who were captivatingly interesting.
The Storytelling is, of course, unique, or it was. Today, people may make jokes about the 'Shyamalan Twist' but at the time, it was a shock to end the film with a scene that made you rethink everything that had happened in the whole movie. To set everything into the story so carefully and precisely that people didn't see it coming was a feat, but to do it in such a way that you watch it a second time and think 'How did I not know? It hardly feels like he's trying to hide it,' is simply mind blowing to me.