Stars: Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette
One of the reasons that I wanted to watch the Best Picture nominees from 2000 to the present is that I remember seeing a few of the films, but I really wanted to pay attention to each one, to see if I thought they were great films, to see why they were regarded highly enough to be nominated (especially before the Best Picture category ballooned to nine or ten nominees). I remembered some of The Sixth Sense, but with tonight's viewing gained a new appreciation for the film.
Bruce Willis plays Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist. At the beginning, he and his wife are celebrating his having been honored by the mayor. They venture into the bedroom and find one of his former patients, Vincent Gray, in the bathroom. He says that Dr. Crowe failed him. Dr. Crowe begs him for a second chance, but Vincent instead pulls a gun and shoots him.
The film flashes forward to the fall, and Dr. Crowe begins to assist Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a child tormented by a secret: He sees dead people. People who don't know they're dead. He sees them routinely, and Dr. Crowe wants to help Cole.
What I appreciated with this viewing was that the atmosphere throughout the film was very still and lifeless. The dialogue is all spoken at a very soft level, which kept me paying very close attention. Visually, there is a lot of shadow-play and crafty angle-work, especially in the scenes between Willis and Haley Joel Osment.
Osment was nominated for best supporting actor, and I wondered upon a second viewing if I would find him in any way cutesy or annoying, but although Osment plays a child in the film, there's very little child in him- he seems like a haunted adult in a child's body. He definitely earns his nomination, as does the film. Four down, one to go!
No comments:
Post a Comment