The Review I Vowed Never to Write

The second thing I said as I walked out of the theater after seeing The Sixth Sense was: “I will never, ever be able to write a review about that movie.”

The first thing I said was: “Omigod!”

That was nine months ago. Since then, I’ve been a very obedient movie reviewer, I have been true to my word, I have stuck to my guns. I have not written about what was surely the best movie released in the summer of 1999.

By the way, if you are one of the three or four cave-dwelling citizens of this nation who have not yet seen The Sixth Sense, you need to stop reading this review right now. I urge, beg, DEMAND that you click away this very instant! And then I demand that you overcome whatever it is that has been keeping you from watching The Sixth Sense and, gosh darn it, GO SEE THE MOVIE.

Here’s all you need to know:
1. There’s a child psychologist (Bruce Willis).
2. There’s a melancholy wife (Olivia Williams).
3. There’s a little boy (Haley Joel Osment) spooked out of his mind.
4. There’s a single mother (Toni Collette) trying to make sense of her son’s terror.
5. There are dead people.

There, I’ve given you enough “tease.” Now, leave!

Why are you still here? Didn’t you hear me? To paraphrase Hamlet: “Get thee to a Blockbuster!”

The Sixth Sense is one of those unique entertainments that dares people to talk about it. And yet, the more people talk about it, the more its value is destroyed (Agatha Christie’s novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is another example). For a movie that depended on word of mouth to make it the number-one smash of late summer 1999, The Sixth Sense had the chutzpah to be the one movie we couldn’t talk about.

The same thing happened with 1992’s The Crying Game. But writer-director M. Night Shyamalan’s ghost story is no Crying Game. Sure, both movies have “secrets” that conscientious viewers like myself swear never to reveal, but The Crying Game uses its twist as just another plot element in a larger picture. In The Sixth Sense the mind-bending twist is the plot and, even if you used a pair of pliers, you’d never be able to separate the two. The movie—so carefully written, so cautiously edited—slowly builds a spell, layering clues and funneling viewers to that final, shattering moment of “Omigod!”

[Note to moviegoers who say they “figured it out” halfway through: You can take your smug little selves and go off and have a party somewhere for all I’m concerned. I’ve seen thousands of movies in my life and in all my days of figuring it out halfway through, I’ve gotta tell ya, I never saw it coming on this one. Chalk it up to Shyamalan’s precisely-written script or chalk it up to the fact that I had too much popcorn butter on the brain, but the fact remains…the end of The Sixth Sense smacked me so hard that I spent a good ten minutes after the movie on my hands and knees in the theater looking for my jaw.]

So, true to my word, I will not tell you how much I liked this movie.

I will not tell you that, as a writer, I was impressed to the point of cartwheels at the perfectly constructed script.

I refuse to blab on about how this was Willis’ best performance since—well, heck, it was his best performance. I also won’t add to the prattle about that young whippersnapper Osment who gave one of the best performances by a prepubescent actor since—well, heck, it was the best-ever performance by a child (somebody check that kid’s ID, I think it’s really Meryl Streep in disguise!).

I cannot write about how the movie’s mind-clouding spell is enhanced by all the technical elements: Tak Fujimoto’s exquisite cinematography, Andrew Mondshein’s precise editing, James Newton Howard’s resonant, dissonant score (though—and here’s my one tiny grumble—at one point the music inexplicably crescendos and overwhelms an important piece of tape-recorded ghost dialogue).

I can’t talk about the chilling images that are engraved on my brain: a red balloon floating to the top of a spiral staircase; the sharp snap of clothespins coming undone; handprints evaporating on a tabletop.

Sticking to my vow, I will not tell you how a movie which on first viewing is a spooky ghost story for the popcorn-munching masses becomes on second viewing a thoughtful art-house meditation on the uneasy transition between this world and the next.

I will not tell you any of that.

This brings us to that moment nine months ago when I walked out of the theater, trembling and reattaching my jaw…

Me: “Omigod!”
My Wife: “Wow! What a great movie!”
Me: “Only trouble is…”
My Wife: “What?”
Me: “I will never, ever be able to write a review about it.”
My Wife: “I know what you mean. How could you possibly talk about this movie?”
Me: “You can’t.”
My Wife: “Some things are better left unsaid.”
Me: “Yeah.” (Pausing for dramatic effect) “I swear by all that’s holy in the Movie Critic’s Bible that I will never write a review of The Sixth Sense.”
My Wife: (hugging me for romantic effect) “I’m proud of you.”


(Warning: there are spoilers in the comments section)