The Sixth Sense

Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) is a child presenting similar symptons to those of the failure. His is anxious, a loner fearful because he believes he is never alone.

Crowe sees Cole as a child that he has to help, Cole gives him a chance to redeem himself, and to be a person with him. They develop are two-sided relationship, the thing that the psych profession claims in a bad thing.

But it is through this relationship that each comes to terms with his personal demons and is able to relate appropriately with the most important women in their lives.

The woman is Cole's life is the splendid Toni Collette (Muriel's Wedding, Diana and Me), whose role tends to slide a bit into the background, but is pivotal, giving the audience important information through her interraction with Cole.

One of the great joys of this film is the structure, it informs in non-intrusive ways, characters seemingly in normal conversations are giving important explanations and clues.

In Beetlejuice the premise was, "The living often won't see the dead". In Sixth Sense, again we are asked to consider whether we really notice all the details of our lives, whether the clues are all there and we just don't see. This film has a story, characterisation, a strong structure, is well crafted, and gives the audience something to think about. It demonstrates the advantages of having one voice writing and directing, which gives a uniformity and cohesiveness to the story-telling. Damn fine way to spend a couple of hours.

Danny says: Every now and again a film comes along that just works because its characters are genuine humans reacting to their circumstances. Sixth Sense is one of those films. Sixth Sense is a film about people with problems. Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) is an outcast at school, is distant with his mother and claims that he sees dead people walking around. more here ...

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