Sheer Magnificence

Rating: Null/10 (17 February 2000)

This is a truly amazing film. I was blessed with the fact that I had heard little about it and knew little of what to expect. This is, I believe, the best way to see a film. So by reading this, you're going to be more prepared than I was. I will, then, be careful.
If you think of child actors, perhaps Macaulay Culkin springs to mind in a wash of horror. Whilst Jake Lloyd did an admirable performance as young Anakin in The Phantom Menace, the role did not offer enough substance to truly test him as an adult actor.
Haley Joel Osment, however, is nothing short of brilliant. In a role that would test the most experienced actors, he draws the audience into the film in a way that defies belief. Although not at the top of the cast list, due to seniority and experience, had he been older, he could have out-billed Willis.
Having said that, the performances from all four of the key players is truly remarkable. The story centres around Osment's character, a child of divorced parents who can communicate with the dead. Willis is his child psychologist and the interplay between the two is awesome. Collette and Williams play the child's mother and Willis' wife respectively. The former gives a truly empathic performance of a single mother with a problem child, and the latter is perfect as the wife of a loner with their relationship in tatters.
Another player that should not go amiss is director Shyamalan, who also stars in a cameo role as Osment's doctor. The pace of the film makes us at one with the characters, and because the film altricates sharply between horror (in the slow-moving, chilling vein of The Exorcist) and sorrow (it is perhaps the most moving film of this decade) we become utterly helpless. It reaches out to you in a way that giants such as Titanic simply fail to do. There is also some incredible photography, under the watchful eye of legendary D.P. Tak Fujimoto.
A wonderful film, or even experience, even for die-hard action lovers. I saw grown men moved by this, and the women in the audience didn't stand a chance! Watch out for the Oscars, because Osment and Shyamalan (whose next film Unbreakable is expected to be just as good) should both receive nominations. If they don't there is something seriously wrong with Hollywood these days.