This film is one of those masterpieces that will be conversation material for many many years. I was warned when it first came out not to listen to anything people said about it as it would ruin the film. Once I saw the film I certainly agreed. The twist in the ending is so so clever. I had kind of picked it though about 2/3rds the way through the film and then turned into one of those annoying people sitting in the cinema saying to my friends "have you picked it yet huh huh?" The kind of people I would smack if they were doing it to me, but for some reason I was excited.

Anyhow back to the film......

This is a truly brilliant story of an award winning child psychologist: Dr Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) who is confronted at the beginning of the film with an old patient he had been unable to cure. Vincent (Donnie Wahlberg) has been labeled as a freak his entire life and he blames this on Crowe. Vincent confronts Crowe and his wife Anna (Olivia Williams) with his pain and after breaking into the house shoots himself in their bathroom.

From here the story turns to another little boy in similar circumstances. Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) has distinct similarities in his psyche to Vincent. Crowe finds himself working tirelessly to help this child.

Cole (in my opinion) now becomes the star of the film. He and his mother (Toni Collette) live a very quiet yet mostly strange life. His schoolmates treat Cole as a freak and his mother is obviously a very lonely woman who cares immensely for her son.

Then there is a breakthrough.... Cole reveals his secret to Dr Crowe. He sees dead people; all the time.

While Dr. Crowe is disbelieving to start with he does come around and can see that Cole is suffering greatly.

And just to really tease anyone who hasn’t seen the film, that is all I’m going to tell you. There is a twist in the end of this film that will send shivers down your spine.

Then you watch it a second time, concentrating on everything in the film, and strangely it all fits into place.

This is truly a masterful piece of filmmaking. 6 academy awards still don’t do it justice. In 20 years time this will still be a timeless classic. I’ve seen it 6 times and could watch it several more.

So How Does This Transfer Hold Up?

VIDEO
To match a superb film we also have a fantastic 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen transfer. It is very easy to get so caught up in the film that you could miss any imperfections in the transfer quality.
Unfortunately there are a few. :(

Shadow detail is awesome. I had trouble finding anything that was wiped out with shadows. This would have been difficult to achieve given that the majority of the film is dark and heavily shadowed scenes. Colour saturation although muted at dark at most times was perfect.

There were no Film or MPEG artefacts, given that this is a recently released film, it is expected that it would be free of these.

The only fault to be found is some grain in a few scenes. This certainly is not a prevalent downfall though. One scene to keep an eye out for is a Kitchen dinner scene with Cole and his mum where the background shows some certain grain. Not to be mistaken for MPEG artefacts. Using the zoom function on my DVD player it certainly shows only as grain and not blocking.

There was also a very small amount of ailiasing and shimmering but once again this can sometimes be unavoidable in really susceptible fine detail scenery.

The layer change at 42.36 is well placed but does interrupt the movie slightly.

AUDIO
The English Dolby Digital 5.1 track is also very good. This is not a thumping high noise level film and certainly not fit for loads of flying surround noise either. The track is predominately dialogue based and is executed superbly in this area. Dialogue is clear and concise and my mystery deafness didn’t have me turning the volume up and down to hear some of the quieter dialogue. (For a change)

James Newton Howard has given an exquisite performance, with a score that will have you constantly on the edge of your seat. The tense and eerie music and sound effects are brilliantly placed and never leave you focusing on he film or the music separately. They truly do go hand in hand for the entirety of the film.

There is very little use of the base channel and also only small usage of the surrounds, but this does not mar the film at all.

EXTRAS
Really with this selection of extras and given the standing of the film I would have expected a collectors edition. However this certainly makes for a bargain of a
disc with this array of extra features.

Story board comparison: A short discussion from the director of differences in the film to the original storyboard.

Cast and Crew Biographies: Extremely informative but somewhat long-winded

4 Cut Scenes: Some scenes that have been deleted from the film. I’m still not sure if this was wise but I have to say the film was great without them anyway.

Theatrical Trailer

2 TV. Spots

Featurettes: Cast, Music and Sound, Clues to the Film, M. Night Shyalaman, Reaching the Audience.

All interesting but enough information to spoil the film, very much an insight into the production and making of the film. How the director got the audience involved.

Do not go past this! This has certainly been the highlight of the film industry in recent times. The acting is superb and Toni Collette shows the world that after Muriel's Wedding, she has so much talent in any role.