The Sixth Sense

[poliphilo]

Watching The Sixth Sense the second time round, the puzzle element slips into irrelevance. It becomes a movie about people and relationships. A little simplistic and sentimental. We are put on this earth to help one another. 

It rides on three remarkable performances. Haley Joel Osment is extraordinary. Toni Colette is wonderfully natural and affecting.  And Bruce Willis is a revelation; who'd have guessed he was capable of this degree of subtlety?

It belongs in a tradition of stories about guardian angels and spirit guides- reaching back through It's A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol to folk tales like Cinderella.

Comments

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

M. Night Shaymalan said that it took him five drafts to realize that the Bruce Willis character was dead, whereupon everything clicked for him and he did several more re-writes before he felt the script was ready.

If you've not seen it yet, I recommend you watch The Jackal - Richard Gere is merely passable, but I really liked Willis' performance in the movie.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the Jackal. Well, that's not entirely true- I've seen bits of it on TV. I've steered clear because I have such fond memories of the original.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

He wrote it and he didn't know that Bruce Willis was dead? I don't get that.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely clear about this, but from the Shaymalan interview that comes as one of the DVD extras, I gather the story went through several drafts before he hit on the final twist. I guess in the earlier versions it was just a story about a child psychologist who sorts out a kid who sees ghosts.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Oh! Thank you. That makes more sense to me.