Review: Charlie St. Cloud

I was in NYC this summer, and positioned right outside of my Times Square hotel window was an inescapable lighted billboard advertisement for Charlie St. Cloud, featuring Zac Efron's face staring heavenward, with his dreamy eyes and casually messy hair, the kind of hair that I dream about having at night. The minute I saw Zac, I knew in my heart that I would NEVER see this film in a theater, but that I might watch it eventually on DVD. Which I did . . . and I guess there's no easy way to say this, but I don't think there's any reason anyone over the age of seventeen should watch this movie, unless they're being forced to chaperone a teen girls' movie night.

Zac plays Charlie, a Pacific Northwest high school senior who's just received a sailing scholarship to Stanford. He lives with his mom, played by Kim Basinger (onscreen for a total of two minutes), and his little brother Sam, played by a cute little kid whose name I can't remember. Charlie and Sam are very close, and despite his busy work/sailing schedule, he promises to meet his little brother in the woods to help him practice baseball every day at sunset. When Sam and Charlie are in an accident, both are killed, but Charlie is resuscitated while Sam isn't, and Charlie blames himself. Charlie is overcome with grief, but luckily Sam still manages to take time out from the afterlife to show up for baseball practice.

Charlie continues to meet his little brother every day at sunset without fail, putting his plans for Stanford, sailing, and everything else to rest. He takes a job as the caretaker at the cemetary where Sam is buried, and when he isn't tossing the ball around with Sam, he's hanging out with his coworker, a zany British guy named Sully who is one of those random stock characters evidently provided for comic relief (it doesn't work). Charlie and Sam have lots of sunset chats and everything is running smooth until Charlie runs into a Tess, a girl he graduated with who is back in town. Tess is into sailing too, and she has plans to sail around the world (or something like that).

Charlie and Tess start hanging out more and more and end up falling in love, and Charlie starts showing up late for practice with Sam, and Sam gets irate and jealous of his brother's new relationship. At this point I wasn't sure whether to keep watching or not, because the thought of codependency extending into the afterlife is not something I'd like to contemplate. And the situation is complicated by the fact that, because Charlie was technically dead for a few minutes before being revived, Sam isn't the only dead person that he can see -- only he doesn't know they're dead. I've hope I haven't given too much away!

I won't give away the ending, but I will tell you this: This was a very pretty movie to look at, but I found it riddled with cliches. You've seen this all before, but that doesn't mean your 14 year-old daughter has, and I guess if she's going to experience these cliches for the first time, this movie is as good (or as bad) as any. Charlie St. Cloud was marketed as a film in which Zac Efron transitions into more adult roles, but that wasn't evident to me because of what I believe is this film's target audience. Zac does, however, show signs of promise, and he also spends a lot of time shirtless or soaking wet or both, so those who are interested in that won't be disappointed.

Recommendation: Listen to it from the next room during your daughter's next slumber party.