Movie Review: Charlie St Cloud

Charlie St. Cloud (2010) 

Directed by Burr Steers

Written by Craig Pearce, Lewis Colick 

Starring Zac Efron, Amanda Crew, Donal Logue, Charlie Tahan, Ray Liotta, Kim Basinger 

Release Date July 30th, 2010 

Published July 30th, 2010 

“Charlie St. Cloud” is baffling in the most unique way. A supernatural drama that combines soft focus goofiness of a Nicholas Sparks romance with the 'I see dead people' conceit of “The Sixth Sense,” “Charlie St. Cloud” in the end leaves one wondering just which characters were alive and which were dead. How many films can claim to be this strangely flabbergasting?

Zac Efron stars as Charlie St. Cloud, class valedictorian of a small northwestern town where sailing is the sport of choice. Charlie and his little brother Sammy (Charlie Tahan) are first glimpsed pulling off a dangerous move to win a local sailing contest and Charlie is said to be heading off to Stanford in the fall on a partial sailing scholarship.

Charlie's plans are destroyed one fateful night when, while he was supposed to watch his brother, he sneaks out to go to a party. Sammy catches him before he can leave and insists on coming with. On the drive they are hit from behind by a drunk driver and sideswiped by an oncoming truck. Sammy is killed almost instantly; Charlie is brought back miraculously thanks to the efforts of a paramedic played by Ray Liotta.

Flash ahead five years and Charlie hasn't left for Stanford. Instead he works as a caretaker at the cemetery where his brother is buried. A vision of Sammy after his funeral convinced Charlie that his little brother is still around and the two meet at sunset in the forest each day for a game of catch.

Enter Tess (Amanda Crew) a fellow sailor who attended high school with Charlie though he doesn't remember her. She is about to leave on an around the world sailing trek but not before the two bond a little over a mutual love of boats. The two spend more time together just before she leaves for her trip but the more time Charlie spends with Tess the more complacent he becomes about Sammy until he is forced to choose between the girl of his dreams and his dead little brother.

At least that is kind of what I think was happening in Charlie St. Cloud. I am honestly unsure what the hell was going with this film's bizarre supernatural plot and confusing screenplay. By the end I could not tell which characters were alive and which were dead.

SPOILER:

Director Burr Steers throws a lot of bizarre complications into this story including a love scene in the cemetery that grows creepy even beyond the setting once the story adds some unique details about Tess that make Charlie look really bizarre and creepy unless Charlie is dead, which he may be. I would call that a spoiler maybe but I honestly don't know if any of the characters in this film were alive or dead, in limbo, in memory or a dream. “Charlie St. Cloud” makes “Inception” look like the picture of narrative clarity.

Adding to the troubled story is the soft focus cinematography of Enrique Chediak who paints everything like a Hallmark Hall of Fame low budget TV production. Long soft focus close-ups of Charlie brooding in a bar, Charlie brooding over coffee, Charlie brooding on the ledge of a lighthouse are dropped in repeatedly throughout the film lending a bland sameness to the look of the film.

Zac Efron does what he can with his goofy role, playing Charlie as a lonely, angst-ridden weirdo who happens to look like Zac Efron. Having to deal with multiple dead or seemingly dead characters that no one else can see, Efron not only must brood alone, he has numerous scenes played just talking aloud to himself and occasionally talking to ducks. As I said, the film is very confusing.

Bizarre to the point of utter bafflement, “Charlie St. Cloud” combines the worst elements of a Nicholas Sparks adaptation with M. Night Shyamalan at his most self involved and aloof. Burr Steers is a once promising director now floundering in his attempt to bring his indie film cred to mainstream features. In “Charlie St. Cloud” Steers attempts to subvert convention by sheer oddity and fails to deliver either quirky indie-ness or mainstream accessibility.

I could almost recommend “Charlie St. Cloud” for its sheer oddity. I’m not going to but I could. The film is so weird and confusing and just plain bad in such a unique way that I can almost appreciate it on an ironic, sort of camp level. If you like movies you can make fun of with your friends, ala “Mystery Science Theater,” you may be just the audience for “Charlie St. Cloud.”