Compared to what Screengrab’s resident box office prognosticators had predicted for it, The Happening’s $30-odd million opening weekend gross was something of a surprise. However, judging by the peals of laughter which accompanied the Friday night screening I attended- combined with mostly dumbfounded reaction to his previous films Lady in the Water and The Village- I think it’s safe to say that M. Night Shyamalan’s reputation among the public has gone down the tubes. It’s strange to think that it hasn’t even been a decade since Shyamalan was Hollywood’s resident whiz kid, turning a low-key chiller into one of the biggest sleeper hits of the 1990s. Today I’ll be taking a second look at that film, 1999’s The Sixth Sense.
What made The Sixth Sense a hit?: In this age of focus groups and micro-managed marketing campaigns, surprise blockbusters have become exceedingly rare. In fact, it seems like the only box-office surprises left are the flops. But The Sixth Sense pulled it off through a mix of numerous elements. First, there was the film’s late-summer release, arriving just in time when slam-bang effects and big-budget bloat was beginning to wear down audiences. Then there were the trailers and TV spots, which wisely played up the story’s big hook, which was nearly encapsulated in one unforgettable four-word line (that would be “I see dead people,” not “keep moving, cheese dick”). And of course there was that final twist, which at a time before every genre film felt obligated to include a twist came as a legitimate surprise to most viewers.
But while all of these elements might have combined to make The Sixth Sense a hit, it would take more than that to take the film’s grosses to nearly $300 million in the U.S. alone, second only to Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace among 1999 releases. Credit good old-fashioned word-of-mouth for the film’s ultimate success. The Sixth Sense was, quite simply, a movie that got people talking, with those who raved about the film convincing their friends, family and coworkers to check it out for themselves. Word of mouth is the hardest kind of buzz to harness properly, but if you can make it work for you, there are few better ways to tap into the zeitgeist, and The Sixth Sense is proof of that.
What happened?: If surprise blockbusters are few and far between, rarer still are huge hits that don’t experience some kind of backlash, and no sooner did The Sixth Sense become one of the most popular movies ever than the backlash began in earnest. The primary target for the naysayers was the famous twist, with people calling the film a one-trick pony and even claiming (truthfully or not) that they saw it coming.
But even more damaging to the film’s reputation in the long run was Shyamalan himself. The Sixth Sense turned the young filmmaker from Philadelphia into one of Hollywood’s marquee directors. The trouble began when Shyamalan began to buy into the hype that had arisen around him. His presence became increasingly ubiquitous in the marketing of his films, with Shyamalan claiming proprietary credit for all of his subsequent efforts to date. Likewise, his attempts to recapture the box office magic of The Sixth Sense have resulted in ever more misguided marketing ploys- remember the awful television “documentary” just before the release of The Village?
Most of all, Shyamalan’s films seem to have suffered due to an need on the director’s part to re-create the success of The Sixth Sense by sticking as closely to his original template as possible. Looking at his subsequent efforts, one notices Shyamalan’s trademark combination of funereal pacing, domestic drama, and the use of an often profoundly quiet soundtrack to build tension. While these stylistic tropes suited The Sixth Sense perfectly, they haven’t fit his other stories nearly so well. However, with Shyamalan’s increased clout has become a maverick tendency on his part to be unreceptive to constructive criticism from others (Exhibit A being Bob Balaban weaselly film critic character in Lady in the Water). As a result, Shyamalan’s recent films have become increasingly schizoid in tone, with goofball humor clashing with tense moments in a way that deflates any suspense the film is trying to create. The films are sometimes interesting- Lady in particular has a crazy charm to it- but it doesn’t make them good.
Does The Sixth Sense still work?: Sure does. Not having seen the film since its initial release, I wasn’t sure whether my knowledge of the twist would spoil the film for me, but I was relieved that it didn’t. In fact, knowing how the film plays out makes one more mindful of the clues Shyamalan sprinkles throughout the film, and watching the film again, I was impressed by how little Shyamalan cheats in order to make the twist happen. He reveals just enough to let the audience know that something is afoot, but never fudges the rules he’s set forth in the story, and if you look closely enough- or know what’s going to happen- you can see this.
Of course, none of this would have worked in the first place had Shyamalan made the audience feel like they were watching a “twist movie.” But to his credit, the film’s
drama is compelling enough on its own that first-time viewers aren’t simply waiting for the other shoe to drop, narratively-speaking. Bruce Willis gives one of his best performances in The Sixth Sense as child psychologist Dr. Malcolm Crowe, who can’t understand why his career and marriage have gone completely to hell after his shooting by a former patient. Likewise, his scenes with Haley Joel Osment as Cole, the forlorn, pint-sized medium in his care, are nicely-performed and written, with Willis proving remarkably patient with his gifted young costar, and Shyamalan giving both some real opportunities to interact onscreen rather than piecing Osment’s performance together in the editing room as one sometimes has to do with child stars.
But the real heart of the film comes in the scenes between Cole and his working-class mother Lynn, played by Toni Collette. Shyamalan is often dismissed as being beholden to his twists, but in The Sixth Sense he creates original characters with very specific relationships, and this- not plot manipulation- is what drives the film. The relationship between Cole and Lynn is always completely convincing, not only because of the performances by Collette and Osment, but also because of the details Shyamalan injects into their scenes together. By the end of the movie, I legitimately cared about these people, and Shyamalan rewards this by saving their best scene for last, when Cole finally decides to confess his secret to his mother. Many of Shymalan’s later films have also attempted one last final tug at the heartstrings, but generally without the same emotional investment, which makes these scenes feel gratuitous at best, and laughable at worst. Perhaps if Shyamalan would put as much care into creating his characters as he would formulating his storylines, he might be able to capture the public’s imagination again the way he did with The Sixth Sense.