The appeal of Shyamalan comes from understated emotions, from understatements generally; I had read about him long before I have seen any of his movies. I understood nothing from his 1st Willis movie—the reversal included. Later, reading criticism, I did not understand what was it that I had missed in that movie. I enjoyed the Gibson movie more than the two Willis outings. But there he jettisoned all understatement. Then, I saw an earlier movie of Shyamalan—that with the Pope and the kid, etc., Shyamalan's hazy recollections of his Catholic schooling. That was 7 ½ yrs. ago; since then, I stopped following his career. But from what I remember of his movies, almost without fondness, it seems as if the subduing, the understatements, the … are what gives him any charm at all.

I thought Sixth Sense was Mortimer Shyamalan's first film, but when I happened across this at a local flea market, I just had to snap it up.Yes, I buy fleas. You got a problem with that? Anyway, true to the style of Mortimer's distinctive oeuvre, the movie is crafted around a clever genre conceit which is carefully hidden away behind the seemingly mundane plot line and then hinted at throughout with lots of arty little boluses of symbolism, foreshadowing, subtext, and big red neon signs that flash on and off in Morse code for no apparent reason.I think this movie is pretty hard to find, so I'm revealing the ending below the line of hyphens that is below this paragraph...---------------------------------------------------------------------At the end, it turns out that the school is actually a *magnet school*, and Joshua is the only student enrolled there who is not actually made of IRON.

When his grandfather dies, Joshua is left feeling lost and confused. Full of questions he begins to search for God in order to get answers. Turning to priests as well as other religions, Joshua is frustrated by his lack of progress but soon learns more than he thought on his journey.Like many of those who have recently seen it, I was drawn to this film by the fact that Shyamalan directed it shortly before hitting big with Sixth Sense. The film isn't like his more recent straight-dramas with a twist, so beware what you expect; this is more a human story and, as such, it isn't totally successful. It delivers most of the story quite well, managing to be quite touching without ever really falling into daytime tv sentimentality, however something was lacking I felt. The overall story is worthy enough but that side of it never really touched me as much as I would have hoped and it could have been made more of - especially as the ending is focused on that aspect in particular. Also I needed more feeling for the relationship between Josh and his grandfather - the flashbacks were OK but didn't do enough to convey the depth of Josh's love nor the sheer loss he must feel.Like he did in Sixth Sense, Shyamalan gets good performances out of his child actors. All the support kids are good but Cross is particularly strong and he does very well carrying the narrative. He really is the lead role and nobody else really gets close in terms of screen time. Given this fact I was surprised how many other famous faces were in small roles - O'Donnell, Leary, Loggia and Lauria; they are all OK but none really has more than a supporting role.Overall, this film was nice but not great. The plot is an interesting one but it doesn't manage to satisfactorily conclude on all the mysticism and ideas that it puts forward. It is still quite a nice little story if you just look at it as a sort of coming of age story surrounding Joshua, but really it didn't quite go where I hoped it would.

My husband and I thought this was an excellent movie! We watched it with our 2 young daughters and it opened a great deal of doors for discussions with them. The casting was wonderful! I had read in an article that M. Night Shyamalan was kind of disappointed with it over-all, and I think that he should re-consider that thought. He states that he wants people to somehow be touched by and to identify with the work that he produces and this movie does exactly that! It hits home on all different levels for young and old.This is a must see for families!!