One For Them, One For Me: M. Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense" and "Stuart Little"

A New Series by Christopher James

Take bets: Who did M. Night Shyamalan find it was easier to write for - a human child or a mouse child voiced by a 38-year-old man?

Do one for them; do one for you. If you can still do projects for yourself, you can keep your soul.
— Martin Scorsese: A Journey

Even from the get go, M. Night Shyamalan’s career was idiosyncratic. He went from Oscar nominated wunderkind to punchline all within the span of less than ten years. With his most recent movie, Old, Shyamalan seems to have figured out a way to own his poor reviews. At a time where the definition of “camp” is constantly argued, Old feels like pure, grade A camp. He’s also regained a lot of his box office cred with Split and Glass, which connected to one of his earliest films, Unbreakable. 

In 1999, Shyamalan earned tons of accolades, including Best Director and Original Screenplay Oscar nominations, for his smash hit, The Sixth Sense. At that point, Shyamalan had only directed two movies, a personal indie called Praying with Anger that he starred in and a movie called Wide Awake that stars Rosie O’Donnell as a baseball fanatic nun. Few things could’ve prepared people for The Sixth Sense’s level of success. However, it wasn’t the only financial hit of the year for Shyamalan. He had done uncredited rewrites on movies like She’s All That, so he wasn’t above doing “one for them” to earn some money. However, he was credited as the writer of the Visual Effects nominated children’s film Stuart Little.

Is there anything that connects The Sixth Sense and Stuart Little together, other than coming from the mind of the same writer? Let’s take a look (age old spoilers ahead)...

What is Haley Joel Osment more freaked out by - dead people or talking mice?

Word of mouth hits like The Sixth Sense don’t happen anymore. The thriller opened to a strong $26 million in August 1999, but hung around in the top 10 for fifteen straight weeks. It ended up grossing more than 11 times its opening weekend domestically alone. It was more than just a commercial hit. The Academy nominated it for six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director for Shyamalan and Original Screenplay for Shyamalan.

The Sixth Sense may be a ghost story, but it’s so much less interested in the supernatural than it seems. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is a renowned Philadelphia child psychologist who encounters a surprise visitor one night. A former patient, Vincent Grey (Donnie Wahlberg), is waiting for Malcolm in his bathroom. Vincent shoots Malcolm and then himself, leaving Malcolm’s wife, Anna (Olivia Williams) to care for Malcolm’s wounds. The movie jumps forward a year, as Malcolm takes on another case. Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) resembles Vincent in a number of ways: he’s from a single mother, has cuts all over and tends to draw incredibly dark scenes. Malcolm makes it his mission to help Cole as a way to cope with Vincent’s death. Unfortunately, this puts him at a distance from his wife.

The famous phrase, “I see dead people,” doesn’t happen until halfway through the film. Shyamalan does a great job building suspense, as weird things start happening around the already awkward Cole. All of the “jump” moments happen in this interesting uncanny valley, where they could be seen as bad behavior on the part of Cole, if someone didn’t want to believe in ghosts. Take for example a scene where Cole’s mother, Lynn (Toni Collette), leaves the kitchen for one moment, only to return a moment later to see all of the cupboards mysteriously opened. It’s jarring in its simplicity. If anything, the second half of the film is considerably less unnerving, as we understand what it is Cole is afraid of. Once you define the boogeyman, you give it less power. In fact, Cole moves from being afraid of the dead to helping them, like in the case of a young dead girl (Mischa Barton) who uses Cole to help expose her murder. His curse can be a gift.

Now that's a Best Supporting Actress clip worthy moment.

The Sixth Sense isn’t about dead people. It’s about admitting who you are to yourself and to others. Cole hates being ostracized by others and being called a “freak,” but being a “freak” makes one unique and special. Cole’s powers for hearing dead people aren’t gone by the end of the movie, he has just learned how to accept this part of him and “come out” to his Mom about them. Toni Collette is best in show as a mother who fiercely loves her son no matter what, but drives herself crazy not knowing what ails him. She takes Lynn on a true three act journey in her final scene stuck in traffic, where Cole tells her he sees dead people. There’s a moment of denial, then acceptance, all the way back to love. All she wanted was for her son to communicate with her, no matter the topic.

Similarly, Malcolm follows Cole around because he needs to prove to himself that he could’ve saved Vincent. While helping Cole is a net good for the world, it’s a bit self serving. In the end, Cole is the one who helps Malcolm understand and accept his truth. He’s dead. He’s never going to connect with his wife. The final moments between Malcolm and Anna are romantic and devastating. He sees her hurting, but gives her peace. The world is a place for the living, not the dead. She needs to be given the space to move on. This twist is so effective because the audience is as thrown as the character, which allows us to feel more deeply with Malcolm as he makes this final decision. The twist is not the final note, but the thing that propels our characters to the final points in their arcs.

Stuart Little may be small in size but he has a BIG personality.

Critics of M. Night Shyamalan would cite that it seemed he would start with a twist and work backwards from there. While I wouldn’t say that is the case with The Sixth Sense, you do see him intricately plot how Bruce Willis would move through the world as a ghost well before the wild end twist. This attention to detail feels a bit lost in Stuart Little, a charming movie that lacks specificity. Try as one might to suspend belief, it still feels strange that a human family would adopt a mouse. Though it was made in 1999, it comes off a bit like a spoof of an Upworthy article. Shyamalan never quite defines the rules of the world of Stuart Little. Our titular character is a talking mouse adopted by a human family who can hear him, but the cat Snowbell (voiced by Nathan Lane) can’t be heard by humans. Some characters look puzzled and judgemental in the Little family’s adoption choice, but many others think it’s perfectly normal. What are the laws that govern which animals can go through the New York adoption system and which can’t.

Based on the 1945 book by E.B. White, the movie finds the charming Little family - Frederick (Hugh Laurie), Eleanor (Geena Davis) and George (Jonathan Lipnicki) - looking to add a new member. Frederick and Eleanor show up at a New York orphanage and immediately fall in love with Stuart (Michael J. Fox), a precocious and lovely child who also happens to be a mouse. Adopting a mouse as a child isn’t without its complications. George struggles to accept Stuart as his little brother. Additionally, the family cat, Snowball (Nathan Lane), wants to get rid of Stuart at all costs. Antics, zaniness and more voice performance (including an unofficial Bullets Over Broadway reunion of Chazz Palminteri and Jennifer Tilly) ensue.

Even in 1999, a family could look like anything.

Director Rob Minkoff (of The Lion King fame and Crystal’s husband on The Real Housewives of Orange County) never gives the picture a visual flair which could’ve made it feel more fantastical. Our climax, where Stuart and Snowbell are cornered in a Central Park tree by cats looking to eat Stuart, is unintelligible. By relying on the, admittedly very good, Oscar nominated visual effects work on Stuart and the cats, Minkoff shoots everything in closeup. There’s no attention paid to staging or understanding how perilous the situation may be. Are the cats coming close? Could the drop lead to the death of our protagonist? The production design of the Little house is cute and colorful, but much of the movie, like the climax, is all darkness.

What works about Stuart Little is also what works about The Sixth Sense. Both are about unconventional mother-son relationships where the son just wants his differences to be understood. Cole fears that his Mother will look at him like a freak if she knows he’ll see dead people. Stuart worries that if he doesn’t fit in with the Little family, he might be shunned or taken back to the orphanage. As an adopted person myself, this film was always a favorite of mine as a kid because it hit on the fears and insecurities one has when they are adopted. Do my differences make me less of a member of this family unit? Both movies answer resoundingly, no. As Toni Collette says in my favorite scene of the film (yes, even better than the car), “I don't know if you noticed -but our little family isn't doing so good… . If we can't talk to each other-we're not going to make it.” By the end, both little families are doing much better.

What is your favorite movie by M. Night Shyamalan? Let us know in the comments below. 

Comments

[thevoid99]

Unbreakable is his best film. He's had an inconsistent career though I think Split is him returning to form. His worst film is a tie between The Happening and The Last Airbender. And for the record, After Earth wasn't his fault. I put the blame on Willy-Will and his no-talent piece of shit spawn for making that film extremely intolerable to watch.