Kerri Battles the AFI’S Top 100 — #89: The Sixth Sense

 

I saw The Sixth Sense once, sometime around when it came out. I remember being quite surprised by the ending, too, so I must have seen it in the theaters on opening weekend because god knows that shit wasn’t a surprise for much longer after that. I think The Sixth Sense might be why the internet invented spoiler alerts. All people could talk about was how they, as higher beings worthy of our adoration, totally knew Bruce Willis was dead the whole time. I haven’t watched it since that first viewing last millenium, so I was eager to find out if it’s even remotely entertaining once you know the “secret twist ending.” I definitely wasn’t expecting it to be. I expected, since I already knew the big twist ending, to be bored out of my skull. I expected to be so bored by the plot that I would hyperfocus on the details and minutiae of the film in order to pinpoint every moment that fellow Philadelphia suburbanite M. Night Shyamalan tipped his hand to the audience. It turns out, though, I wasn’t actually bored at all. Well, mostly not bored, anyway.

If you live anywhere but the Philadelphia area, the above sentiments apply to you.

 

 If you don’t know the plot of The Sixth Sense, … congratulations? Or something? I’m not sure — I never know how to deal with people like you. You know, people who have managed to completely avoid any knowledge of hugely iconic moments in pop culture. How do you live?? Still, the next couple sentences are expressly for you because, really, that’s all the movie needs. In the first 5 minutes, my favorite New Kid, Donnie “The Talented One” Wahlberg breaks into award-winning-child-therapist Bruce Willis’ house and shoots him in the stomach for not helping him with his childhood emotional issues which have clearly followed him into adulthood. The following fall, Ghost Bruce Willis starts following around Haley Joel Osment, who sees dead people who don’t know they’re dead. Bruce helps Haley figure out how to handle the ghosts who literally haunt his daily life while Haley helps Bruce figure out he is one of those ghosts. Hilarity ensues. Or something. Also, we, as the audience, are not supposed to know Bruce Willis is a ghost until the last 5 minutes.

Since this wasn’t my first viewing, I was, as mentioned above, in a better position to pay closer attention to detail. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything there to uncover. It’s all laid out in front of you — Bruce Willis is fucking dead and that’s why no one talks to him or even acknowledges his presence. Even first time viewers will notice that those scenes that include people other than the kid feel wrong. Let’s be kind and say this was solid, intentional filmmaking by Night.  It’s also boring as hell. Because once you know he’s dead, Bruce Willis’ storyline is, hands down, the dullest part of this film. Sure, the first time around, you might think he’s an interesting character who really wants to make good for not helping an ex-boy-bander with his psychoses. But once you already know he’s dead and, therefore, really incapable of growing as a character beyond realizing he’s fucking dead, it becomes evident that M. Night Shyamalan really missed the mark on this one by fucking miles. Probably half of the movie is devoted to Bruce Willis’ “crumbling” marriage. Once you realize his wife isn’t just some frigid bitch who seems to be angry with her husband for getting shot, the storyline becomes completely extraneous and wholly unnecessary. I found that what I really wanted was to see more of Haley Joel Osment and Toni Collette. Bruce Willis may be the only one who got billing on the poster, but Osment and Collette’s performances made the movie. If Shyamalan had scrapped the whole “twist secret ending” and spent more of the hour and forty-five minute runtime focusing on these two and their struggles and growth, he could have had a much stronger story to tell. Plus, he would have avoided that heinous one-trick-pony that simultaneous built and destroyed his respectability. Because, you know, when every movie you make has a surprise twist ending, they stop being surprise twist endings. That road leads to The Happening, which I think we can all can agree would have best been avoided by everyone anywhere ever.

The best performance of all, though, was given by the city of Philadelphia itself. Having recently — and begrudgingly — moved out South Philly for “cleaner” and “safer” suburbs, I always seem to fall in love with any movie filmed in the city that stole my heart. That’s especially true when said movie isn’t trying to pass Philadelphia off as New York (for those that do, please refer to the above Liz Lemon clip) or trying to make the world think that Reading Terminal Market is like a block and a half from Old City (National Treasure, I’m looking at you). Shyamalan at least knew better than that. He knew a lot better. The film, despite all of its flaws, is an open love letter to the city itself. Shyamalan prominently displays the art and architecture found all over the city. He shoots “South Philly” scenes in actual South Philly neighborhoods. He shows very little of Rittenhouse Square because FUCK THOSE SNOBS. He even had Haley Joel’s teacher lecture his class on the  importance of this city in the revolutionary founding of this country. PHILADELPHIA IS THE GOD DAMNED CRADLE OF LIBERTY, BITCHES. DON’T YOU FORGET IT. 

The AFI would probably say this movie was added to the list for reasons related to, “I see dead people.” Maybe that’s true, but I maintain that it was a missed opportunity for M. Night to make a much more interesting movie that replaced Bruce Willis’ entire storyline with a  scene where Osment takes a class trip to Eastern State Penitentiary. If nothing else, I could watch this movie again just to pay attention to the scenery. And to my Canadian friend who considers this whole film a bold-faced lie because “no block in Philadelphia has ever been that clean,” I say Shyamalan just cherry-picked the blocks that required the least amount of de-littering. — KS