Lights, camera, action!
This is a story of a doctor trying to help a little boy, and the little boy returning the favor. Sounds like a plot at the center of a heartwarming comedy, right? After all, movies with kids as the stars are usually a "warm and fuzzy" kind of deal.
Not this one.
You see, the boy's problem is that he sees dead people. Um, yeah. And the doctor's problem is, well...he's got a few, but his main concern? His relationship with his wife seems to have gone totally south since one of his former patients, Vincent, broke into his house, accused Malcolm (that's the doc) of failing him, and then shot Malcolm and himself.
Ever since then, Malcolm has lost his confidence as a children's psychologist, and that's why he's so invested in helping Cole Sear (the boy who sees dead people). Cole reminds him of Vincent, so working with Cole is like getting a do-over—you know, get it right with this kid and make up for (apparently) failing to help another.
Cole, however, isn't super jazzed about having Malcolm following him around trying to get him to talk about his feelings; in fact, he looks pretty wary of Malcolm. The whole "seeing dead people" thing is a huge secret he doesn't think anyone will understand. But Malcolm eventually earns Cole's trust, and Cole finally lets the cat out of the bag.
Malcolm's understandably skeptical at first. But the doc eventually comes around and realizes that his former patient, Vincent, was having the same, er, "issues" as Cole. Malcolm's inability to see all that terrifying supernatural stuff was what prevented him from helping. That explains Vincent's whole homicidal/suicidal thing—we'd probably be a little crazy too if ghosts had been aggressively haunting us nonstop into adulthood.
Malcolm isn't about to make that same mistake again. Once he's zeroed in on the problem, Malcolm gets Cole to realize that the ghosts are probably just looking for help rather than trying to terrorize him. The prescription from Dr. Malcolm? Try listening to them.
Cole gives it a try, and as a result, he no longer seems terrorized and frightened by the ghosts that surround him. He even starts actively assisting the dead, helping a ghost girl get word to her father of how she died (which helps prevent another tragedy in that same family). To return the favor, Cole helps Malcolm figure out how to solve his marital problems.
"Wait," you might be wondering, "What does a young kid know about marriage?"
Fair enough. You're right, Cole probably doesn't have a ton of insight into marriage. But he does know a lot about...well...dead people. And that's what Malcolm is: dead people. Well, a dead person. And he's been dead the entire movie.
Is your mind blown yet?
See, when Shyamalan showed us Malcolm getting shot and then cut to him roaming around Philadelphia the next fall, we assumed (as we were supposed to) that Malcolm had survived the shooting. Malcolm clearly believed that he had survived, which is why he was still walking around trying to do his job, talk to his wife, and so on.
But…nope.
And when we saw Cole looking at Malcolm with a frightened expression, we thought he was just afraid to tell anyone his secret.
Nope on that front, too. Malcolm was another one of the ghosts that was scaring Cole.
Now it all makes sense: Malcolm and his wife weren't on bad terms because they were emotionally estranged. They weren't speaking because he was dead. Yeah, she couldn't see or hear him.
Once he gets over freaking out about the fact that he's dead and finally comes to terms with what actually happened when he was shot, he's able to say his goodbyes to his wife. It appears that Malcolm is finally ready to let go of his earthly life and move on to whatever comes next.