The Sixth Sense (1999) dir. M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams

****

The success of “The Sixth Sense” still surprises me. The film made just under $300million in the domestic box office, a phenomenal achievement considering it's small scale narrative limitations. If anything it’s a sign that audiences are willing to embrace quality without the formula elements of tentpole blockbuster films.

On the list of top grossing films of all time "The Sixth Sense" stands at number 30 in between “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”, and “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”. In fact, amongst the top 50, it stands out like a sore thumb: it’s a rare non-animated film that isn’t or hasn’t had a sequel, it’s not for kids, its budget was a modest $40million, and it contains no special effects.

“The Sixth Sense” is sparse on plot, characters, and action, and paced like a slow burning candle and with the volume of a whisper. But with basically four characters with limited locations and dialogue, M. Night Shyamalan managed to perfect the supernatural thriller genre and of course, with the help of one of the greatest plot twists of all time.

Shyamalan’s four key characters are Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), a child psychologist going through marriage troubles; Malcolm’s wife, Anna (Olivia Williams), is so aloof to Malcolm, she’ll barely even talk to him; there’s Malcolm latest case, Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), an anti-social young boy who’s stricken with some kind of psychological disorder; and there’s Cole’s mom, Lynn (Toni Collette) who’s recently lost her mother and continually struggles to bring up Cole as a single parent.

Barely anyone outside of these four characters are crucial to the story. While Malcolm's wife appears to develop a relationship with a young co-worker and Cole gets bullied by some fellow kids at school everything is developed through conversations between these four characters. 

In keeping the dialogue quiet and minimalist “The Sixth Sense” becomes more rewarding with multiple viewings beyond just the cleverness of the twist. One of the themes of the film is parenthood and the importance of love and attention. Since Lynn is a single parent who can’t always go to every play, soccer game or even walk him home from school, Cole likely develops his extra sensory perception as a mechanism to cope with his loneliness. This connects to Lynn’s post-mortum reconciliation with her mother, who likely had a similar relationship with her.

The film could even exist and be successful without “the twist”. The moment Bruce Willis discovers who he is is indeed a shocking reveal (and still sends shivers down my spine), the real twist occurs earlier in the third act when Malcolm and Cole discovers that his sight is not a burdon on him but a gift given to him to help the living reconcile with the dead. The build-up to the funeral scene is played out with perfect pacing and shot selection.

“The Sixth Sense” wasn’t Shyamalan’s first film, in fact, he had directed two non-successful film, non-thrillers previously. So how did he make this monumental creative leap to craft such a true auteur instant classic? Perhaps the divine intervention which always creeps into his films. Enjoy.

The Sixth Sense is now available on Blu-Ray from Walt Disney Home Entertainment

Watch this original trailer. The key reveal of learning Cole's secret is unfortunately ruined by this trailer

The Happening (2008) dir. M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo

**

My reviews are not meant to stand as such forever. My opinions change with different viewings, sometimes dependent on mood, the environment/screening medium, timing, age etc. “The Happening, which I saw just a few months ago in the summer, was a fun cinematic experience. Despite horrible critical reviews, the good elements trumped the bad elements, and I gave it a decent ***.

However, a second screening at home has produced a reversal of thought – not full 180 degrees, maybe 115. Please re-read my original review HERE. I can only say “What was I thinking??”

"The Happening" is a simple story which literally jumps right into the story with haste. Some kind of epidemic or virus is sweeping the east coast of the U.S. Without warning large groups of people suddenly stop moving, become entranced zombies and then systematically commit suicide. Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) is a humble science teacher who desperately tries to bring his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) and a small group of people to safety while trying to figure what the hell is going on.

Just about the only thing happening for “The Happening” is the wonderful dough-eyed performance of Zooey Deschanel. It’s hardly a star-performance, or anything close to a leading lady, but her soft-spoken innocence and gosh-darn wide-eyed stare is just too cute not to love. Unfortunately everyone else in the film is almost unwatchable. Other than the star names above, it’s largely unknown actors saying the lines. But I lay blame on Shyamalan who directed these actors to their awful performances. They are given familiar disaster-movie lines, like “what the hell is going on?”, Where are we” and “run!” The actors can’t even say these lines right.

On the DVD special features a whole featurette is devoted to the gore in the film. Shyamalan was encouraged by the studio to go for an R-Rating for the first time. Shyamalan describes his enthusiasm in using violence to increase the intensity of the film. But Shyamalan, who is a master at off-camera tension, should have known better. None of the gore works in this film. Almost every squirt of blood or hacked limb jumps out of the screen like an exclamation mark where none was required.

The problem is Shyamalan filmed the story with the same tone, pace and visual style as his other films, the effect of which was a statement against the gratuitousness of arbitrary gore. The most glaringly excessive gore moment is the one seen from a woman’s i-phone as the zoo-keeper gets mauled to death by the lion. Not only is the CG matting obvious it’s a near carbon-copy of a scene from Shyamalan’s “Signs” – a far superior film.

This time around, I just couldn’t look past the atrocious logical holes and decision-making inconsistencies. Specifically Julian’s (John Leguizamo) decision to leave his child with Elliot and Alma while he searches for his wife. No one in the world would do that. No one.

As well I could not look past the excessive use of expository television and radio coverage. The technique was used effectively and sparingly in “Signs”, but in this film Shyamalan continually bombards us with a scene every 10mins of a television reporter telling us information we knew already. It’s a mark of an inexperienced and lazy filmmaker, and so it’s amplified even more knowing it comes from someone with talent.

The only other saving grace is James Newton Howard’s fine minimalist score. In fact, I’d argue Howard as being the best music composer working in Hollywood today. With only a few notes he creates one of those effectively creepy scores we heard from John Carpenter in the 80’s.

The themes and metaphors of the environment, post 9/11 social cohesion, and over-population are sometimes subtle and sometimes blockhead. The inconsistencies are frustrating. I wish could have bottled my first experience with this film, because now I can only see it’s flaws. It’s a well-intentioned sloppy mess.

"The Happening" is available on DVD and Blu-Ray Oct 7 from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

The Happening (2008) dir. M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel

***

Each new Shyamalan film over the past few years has been greeted with anticipation, and expectation. “Lady in the Water” was truly a bad movie. Yet, despite the failure his willingness to take a risk, fail, take his knocks and pick himself back up again is what great filmmakers do. Though still a relatively young man, I think Shyamalan is a great filmmaker – certainly someone with such immense talent whose films deserve their attention and scrutiny.

“The Happening” has taken a lot of knocks, but it’s a very good film – a few scenes short of great – but still a mysterious, though-provoking and sometimes visceral cinema experience. It’s not for all tastes, and most of the criticism is warranted – yet for those who enjoy quiet cerebral slow-brewing tension, Shyamalan delivers an antidote to the bloated summer blockbusters.

Like most of his films, Shyamalan likes to work within self-imposed parameters – as if he’s created his own personal set of dogma rules – stripping away the stylistic elements to put the audience in the skin of the characters without artifice. His methodology is admirable and invigorating when he succeeds.

His rules apply with “The Happening”. The situation is simple – over the eastern seaboard regular citizens suddenly start exhibiting suicidal tendencies and kill themselves with robotic-like procedure and precision. We watch as a gentle woman quietly stabs herself in the neck, a man runs himself over with a lawnmower, high rise window cleaners throw themselves from a top of a building. Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) a soft-spoken teacher, escapes the danger areas and leads his wife and the left-behind child of his best friend to safety from an explained force of nature.

As consistent with his ‘great’ films, Shyamalan never loses sight of his characters and his themes. The themes of “The Happening” are crystal clear (there’s an environmental lesson and a poignant post 9/11 theme of social cohesion) and so we never feel it’s the director jerking us around for the sake of some scares. In fact, there’s relatively few “scares” per se; instead tension is built to an emotionally-based climax. So without traditional plot-based closure it’s easy to see why “The Happening” has left many dissatisfied.

Another difficulty Shyamalan forces himself to hurdle is the lack of an antagonist. Moore and the fleeing innocents are continually trying to figure out what is going on, who is attacking them and for what reason. Midway through, a theory is deduced which is accepted by Elliot and his group. If this is the reveal of the antagonist it’s either one of the most audacious plot points to come across mainstream cinema in a while, or it’s an inspired creative decision. It’s a bit of both, but I personally saw the ‘evil presence’ in the film as an intellectual spin on classic b-movie horror – think “The Blob” meets “The Birds”.

A few key aspects prevent the film from becoming great. The acting waffles on many occasions. Mark portrays his character with Shyamalan’s typical everyman monotone cadence. But his performance is often inconsistent – he’ll go over top in one scene and understated in the next. And many of the supporting actors simply lack the chops to sell the grief and dismay of the gruesome situations. Shyamalan’s quirky humour is dolloped in, in unexpected but also welcomed moments. The film is never serious enough for a gag or two.

And there’s a major editing fiasco as well. Several scenes stand out glaringly like scenes from a bad film slotted into a great film. Imagine a chunk of “Deep Blue Sea” slotted into “Jaws”. There’s three scenes I specifically noted: 1) a montage scene in the middle of the film showing various people around the U.S. watching the events unfolding through the television 2) a gruesome death scene as seen through a PDA device 3) a lengthy television interview scene in the denouement. I can only assume Mr. Shyamalan got territorial and couldn’t ‘kill his babies’.

N. Night Shyamalan’s films often don’t sit comfortably with audiences because they aren’t genre films. Though they sit in the thriller section of the video shelves, they are far from traditional genre pictures. “The Happening” is much the same. With the extreme backlash against the man, I’d like to start a support group for fans of this film – are there any out there? Enjoy.

PS. And by the way, I loved Zooey Deschanel’s spacey performance.

The Happening