Charlie St. Cloud

Charlie St. Cloud (2010)

RATING 5/10

BOTTOM LINE

The film has a good message, but the execution is lost, meandering and weak, leaving “Charlie St. Cloud” in a netherworld where it loses its message in a sea of mediocre direction.

THE GOOD

Teen heart-throb Zac Efron plays the title character Charlie St. Cloud, a young man with a potentially bright future in sailing. When his younger brother Sam (Tahan) is killed in a tragic car accident with Charlie at the wheel, his life is turned upside down, and he puts everything on hold to stay with his brother, becoming curator for the cemetery in which Sam is buried. He forms a spiritual connection with Sam, which becomes all the more poignant when fellow sailor Tess (Crew) shows up in his cemetery, apparently injured. All of these moments lead Charlie to finally discover the meaning of his life. At its basic level, this film is about working out that life is meant to be lived, not be put on hold for someone or something else. A strong scene in the film involving Charlie and the paramedic that saved him highlight the tragedy of Charlie’s life, as he never moved forward after Sam’s death. Zac Efron does an amicable job as Charlie, providing the right amount of grimness and quirkiness to his performance to make him believable. The film tries to capture some moments about ‘life’, and in a few aspects, it does a reasonable job of this.

THE BAD

The overall execution of the concept of this film is weak. The plot navigates in a meandering and lost manner, never really connecting the dots appropriately. Charlie is something of an arrogant older brother, which doubly compounds his feelings of guilt of Sam’s death. But the film spends an inordinate amount of time at the cemetery where Charlie is talking to other people he knows who have died. When you first see this, you think Charlie is not all there mentally. But later, the film suggests that they are spirits he is in contact with, but by this time, the whole point is lost as the revelation comes too late. It also makes Charlie’s subsequent rescue of Tess that much more unbelievable. To think that she survived in freezing conditions for more than three days, and all Charlie had to do was use his body warmth to heat her up is bordering on ridiculous. It also trivialises their meeting at the end of the film when Tess realises that she has a much stronger connection to Charlie than she anticipated. In many ways, the structure of the script seems to be like that of a novel (probably lifted straight from the one this film is based on). That structure works for a novel, but it does not work for a film which needs a different structure. As a result, the film’s good message is totally lost in a weak and meandering plot that does not seem to go anywhere.

Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net

Last updated: 2011-05-30 15:20:21 by todd_murphy

Charlie St. Cloud

Charlie St. Cloud directed by Burr Steers opened today, and is likely playing at your local cineplex. The story is simple enough when you take the broad overview - There are two brothers in a small Pacific Northwest coastal town. Charlie St. Cloud played by Zac Efron, is a high school senior who is a masterful sailor and is headed to Stanford on a scholarship. His 11 year old younger brother Sam (Charlie Tahan) idolizes his older brother and the Boston Red Sox in that order. They live a middle class life that appears idyllic because the setting is a beautiful coastal town called Quincy Harbor. All is well...until a drunk driving accident takes Sam's life and nearly costs Charlie his own life.



Charlie loses it at his brother's funeral, as he runs off into the woods where Sam appears to him. Charlie agrees to meet Sam everday at sunset to toss a baseball around. No matter what, come hell or high water...everyday, which brings Charlie's life as a golden boy headed to Stanford, to a screeching halt.



At that point, Director Steers and his screenwriter Craig Pierce, who together adapted Ben Sherwood's novel The Death and Life of Charlie St.Cloud into this movie, start tossing topics at us, as if we have suddenly become the third party to a two man juggling act. We are asked to think about such things as Why did Charlie survive and Sam die? Why did God allow this to happen? Is Charlie

1) seeing his dead brother...
2) dreaming that he is seeing his dead brother
3) thinking he can see, talk, and interact with his dead brother
4) hallucinating...
5) or all of the above

Flash forward five years. Charlie is still in Quincy Harbor leading a near hermetic life as the cemetery care taker. Yes that same cemetery where Sam is buried. Charlie has become known as the town's 'certifiable loon'. Since Sam died, he's gone round the bend so say the townsfolk.



Enter Amanda Crew, as Tess Carroll, a former classmate of Charlie's in HS. She's now ready to start a solo round-the-world voyage in a sailboat. The music swells, and we know romance is in the air. Or is it?

The line begins to blurr and what appears to be reality may not be so. At this point melodramatics overtake the script, and somewhere it seems as if Burr Steers has lost his way.



But not his focus, as he shows one shot after another of the golden boy. While Zac Efron may indeed be good-looking, we need a sensible story along with those innumerable pretty closeups of the lead. When you watch people sailing, it is usually going to look pretty good - and they've nailed that. Vancouver's coast and environs do indeed make a pretty picture, as do Zac and Amanda.



But the picture is cluttered with attempts to drag us into something more meta-physical and or sentimental than we need or want. For example Ray Liotta has just two scenes, first as the paramedic who pulls Charlie and Sam out of the wreck, and then later as a former paramedic who now has the Big C and isn't long for this world. He says...Charlie,, God saved you...for a reason.. get out there and live your life... all the while he is clutching his St. Jude medallion.



And so it goes. The film has received decidely less than enthusiastic reviews. Zac Efron will be attractive to horde's of teen fans who may be satified with the look of the film, and be willing to overlook the lack of depth to the story, the manipulations, along with the cluttered philosophical questions tossed our way.

 

On the other hand, you might find that if the good looks, great sunsets, and superb sailing footage are what you liked best or remember about this film, then it is worth less than the cost of that overpriced superlarge tub of popcorn that you paid for along with your ticket.

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