Nice movie for Bruce: The Sixth Sense
Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), a child psychologist in Philadelphia, returns home one night with his wife, Anna Crowe (Olivia Williams), after having been honored for his work. Anna tells Malcolm that everything is second to his work. The two then discover that they are not alone; a young man appears brandishing a gun. He says that he does not want to be afraid anymore and accuses Crowe of failing him. Malcolm recognizes him as Vincent Gray (Donnie Wahlberg), a former patient whom he treated as a child for hallucinations. Vincent shoots Malcolm in the abdomen, before turning the gun on himself.
The next autumn, Malcolm begins working with another patient, eight year old Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), whose case is similar to Vincent’s. Malcolm becomes dedicated to the boy, though he is haunted by doubts over his ability to help him after his failure with Vincent. Meanwhile, his wife hardly pays any attention to him, and Malcolm believes that Anna may be contemplating a romance with a coworker who keeps coming around the house, although this elicits sadness, rather than anger. At the same time, he repeatedly has difficulty opening the door to his basement office.
Once Malcolm earns his trust, Cole eventually confides in him that he “sees dead people… walking around like regular people”. One that tries to hurt Cole is only heard as a voice who pleads with Cole to let him out of a dark cupboard, then yells that he didn’t steal “the Master’s horse” and threatens to attack Cole. Another ghost who appears to Cole is an overworked wife, abused by her husband, who has slit her wrists. A third ghost is a boy with a large gunshot exit wound on the back of his head who invites Cole to see his father’s gun. At first, Malcolm thinks Cole is delusional and plans to drop him. Remembering Vincent, the psychologist listens to an audiotape that Malcolm has saved from a psychotherapy session between himself and Vincent (then a young boy) in 1987. On the tape, Malcolm left the room and when he returned Vincent was crying. Turning up the volume all the way, Malcolm hears a weeping man and now believes that Cole is telling the truth and that Vincent may have had the same ability to perceive ghosts. He suggests to Cole that he should try to find a purpose for his gift by communicating with the ghosts and perhaps aid them with their unfinished business on Earth.At first, Cole is unwillingly since the ghosts terrify him, but he finally decides to try it.
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He talks to one of the ghosts, a very ill girl who appears in his bedroom and promptly vomits in his tent. He finds where the girl, Kyra Collins (Mischa Barton), lived and goes to her house during her funeral reception with Malcolm. Kyra died after a prolonged illness and funeral guests note that Kyra’s younger sister is starting to get sick, too. Kyra’s ghost appears and gives Cole a box, which is opened to reveal a videotape. When Cole gives it to Kyra’s father, the videotape shows Kyra’s stepmother putting floor cleaner fluid in Kyra’s food while she cared for Kyra during her illness.Learning to live with the ghosts, Cole starts to fit in at school and gets the lead in the school play, which Malcolm attends. The doctor and patient depart on positive terms and Cole suggests to Malcolm that he should try speaking to Anna while she is asleep. On the way home, Cole confesses his secret to his mother, Lynn (Toni Collette). Although his mother at first does not believe him, Cole soon tells Lynn that her own mother once went to see her perform in a dance recital one night when she was a child, and that Lynn was not aware of this because her mother stayed in the back of the audience where she could not be seen. He also tells her that the answer to a question she asked when alone at her mother’s grave, “Do I make you proud?”, was “Every day”. Lynn tearfully accepts this as the truth.Malcolm returns to his home, where he finds his wife asleep on the couch with the couple’s wedding video playing, not for the first time. As she sleeps, Anna asks her husband why he left her. Then her hand drops Malcolm’s wedding ring, which he suddenly discovers he has not been wearing. Malcolm remembers what Cole said about ghosts and the psychologist realizes that he was actually killed by Vincent and was unknowingly dead the entire time he was working with Cole. Due to Cole’s efforts, Malcolm’s unfinished business—rectifying his failure to understand and help Vincent—is finally complete. Recalling Cole’s advice, Malcolm speaks to his sleeping wife and fulfills the second reason he returned, saying she was “never second”, and that he loves her. Letting her live her own life, he is free to leave the world of the living.
According to the book DisneyWar, Disney’s David Vogel read Shyamalan’s speculative script and instantly loved it. Without obtaining approval from his boss, Vogel bought the rights to the script, despite the high price of US$2 million and the stipulation that Shyamalan could direct the film. Disney later dismissed Vogel as President of Walt Disney Pictures, and Vogel left the company. Disney, apparently in a show of little confidence in the film, sold the production rights to Spyglass Entertainment, and kept only a 12.5% distribution fee for itself.The color red is intentionally absent from most of the film, but is used prominently in a few isolated shots for “anything in the real world that has been tainted by the other world” and “to connote really explosively emotional moments and situations”. Examples include the door of the church where Cole seeks sanctuary; the balloon, carpet, and Cole’s sweater at the birthday party; the tent in which he first encounters Kyra; the volume numbers on Crowe’s tape recorder; the doorknob on the locked basement door where Malcolm’s office is located; the shirt that Anna wears at the restaurant; Kyra’s mother’s dress at the wake; and the shawl wrapped around the sleeping Anna.All of the clothes Malcolm wears during the film are items he wore or touched the evening before his death, which included his overcoat, his blue rowing sweatshirt and the different layers of his suit. Though the filmmakers were careful about clues of Malcolm’s true state, the camera zooms slowly towards his face when Cole says “I see dead people”. In a special feature the filmmakers mention they initially feared this would be too much of a giveaway, but decided to leave it in.
