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Show CLITA RE FLELSHL Extra Sense-ory Perceptions Warning: This Column May or May Not Contain a Surprise Ending [The nature of this column’s topic may involve plot spoilers for viewers who have not yet seen The Sixth Sense. Readers are advised to proceed at their own risk.] f all the benefits | have received from being a film critic, | may value innocence the most. It may seem an odd choice of words in a profession more often associated with cynicism, but it applies nonetheless. While the onslaught of studio publicity is impossible to avoid completely, the ability to attend press screenings serves as something of a buffer against expectations. | didn’t have to worry about reacting with or against the Blair Witch hype since | had writ- Osment and Willis have a secret in The Sixth Sense to seem plausible. The only constant to draw me from my ten my review six months before its release. | never needed to guard against becoming reverie was Osment, a sublimely effective child actor (where the heck was he when aware of key Crying Game-esque plot points. » Lucas was casting The Phantom Menace?) whose performance alone is enough to recIt was possible for my viewing experience to ommend The Sixth Sense. Children in jeopremain relatively untainted, subject only to ardy are usually a narrative cheat, but preconceived notions for which | could have Osment’s reactions to his situation are no one but myself to blame. always more compelling than Shyamalan’s It took the release of The Sixth Sense for few moments of thriller gimmickry. The irony me to realize how much that innocence can matter. After missing the press screening _ is that my connection with Cole’s plight was due to scheduling conflicts, | became aware consistently undercut by my awareness that the film’s payoff would not focus on him. that this story—Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), a troubled child psychologist, tries to Perhaps my long-standing aversion to physician-heal-thyself psychologist/psychiotrist characters (coincidentally sparked by another Willis film, the ghastly Color of Night) turned me off to Malcolm as an equal player in the story. Perhaps the supernaturally comforting closing shot reminded me too much of Ghost. Perhaps the big emotional moment for Toni Collette (as Cole’s mother) felt dishonest because her character hadn't been developed at all. Or perhaps | never bought the entire arc of Malcolm’s story from the outset. It’s hard for me to know whether it was the film itself or my constant view of its wires that left me unimpressed. The unexpected, improbable success of The Sixth Sense suggests that it has struck an emotional chord in many viewers. For me, the only chords it could strike were technical. help even-more-troubled 9-year-old Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) with the child’s ability to see dead people—contained a “twist” or “surprise” ending. Reviews and discussions meticulously avoided revealing the specific nature of the ending, but by then the damage had been done. | considered everything | knew about the film, and made an educated guess regarding what would be revealed in its closing moments. Then | finally caught up with the film, and watched with my “can | out-guess the writer” glasses on. . Within 20 minutes, it was obvious | had guessed correctly. I’m not going to suggest that it was par- Fl | 6661 ‘C YIGWIIdIS | SL . Music by Insatiable sessseees SYNCFO Freestyle Competition 6:00 p.m. car ursaiet paneer aaiacs nsec FINO Ace Productions Freestyle Show ticularly clever of me to figure it out. | will suggest that | probably wouldn’t have been testing my cleverness at all if | hadn’t known there was something to be figured out. The simple knowledge that there was a plot point to be sussed out set me to sussing. And | spent as much of the film nodding to myself at the clues | recognized as | did trying to get caught up in the story. The nature of the film made such behav- ior both a blessing and a curse. Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan’s pacing is so agonizingly deliberate that | was delighted to have something else on which to train my attention. Conversely, | was able to give some questionable performance choices a bit more benefit of the doubt, and admire the craft that allowed Shyamalan’s little trick | There was a not-particularly-inspired gag often used by Titanic detractors during its theatrical run, something along the lines of “what's the point, you know the boat’s going to sink.” Uninspired though it may be, there’s a germ of truth as it applies to other films. | feel sympathy for those who went to see The Blair Witch Project with impossibly high expectations, unable to separate their reactions from the media blitzkrieg to which they had been exposed. On rare occasions, ignorance truly can be bliss. Next time, | hope | don’t go into a film knowing whether or not the boat is going to sink. |