Charlie St. Cloud Reviews

Ace sailor and all-around great human being Charlie St. Cloud (Zac Efron) is perfect at life. He’s a shoe-in to win any and all interschool sailing competitions, and he takes the not-so-good-natured ribbing of his envious competitors with grace and charm. He is willing to defer his enrollment at Stanford (Charlie St. Cloud is very smart) and find a part-time job in order to take some of the financial pressure off his beleaguered mother (an underused Kim Basinger). Most of all, Charlie St. Cloud is a great big brother, and he swears to help 11-year-old Sam St. Cloud (Charlie Tahan) hone his baseball skills every day at sunset, “rain or shine, come hell or high water.” Somewhere, somehow, Nicholas Sparks is asking Charlie St. Cloud to tone it down. While “lucky” may not be the proper term, it is, from a film perspective; at least in terms of his career, Efron is fortunate that Sam dies in a car accident, because an emotionally devastated Charlie St. Cloud is a lot more interesting than his flawless former self. In a supernatural twist, having temporarily flat-lined in the accident, Charlie has been given the dubious gift of being able to see, touch, and converse with earthbound souls, the most notable being his brother. Five years after the tragedy, Charlie -- whose reputation has diminished from golden boy to the local loon who gave up a stellar career to work as a caretaker at the cemetery -- has kept his promise to Sam, leaving them both unable to stray from their home for fear that it would break the bond between them. For Charlie, who feels responsible for the accident, abandoning these sessions would be the ultimate breach in loyalty. While the gimmicky feel never subsides -- and despite the fact that the film is every inch an epic, three-hankie tearjerker for young girls -- it’s impossible not to notice that Zac Efron brings a levity and palpable sorrow to a character that, in less skilled hands, might have been too sappy to root for. When the paramedic responsible for bringing Charlie back from the brink of death (Ray Liotta) encourages him to fall in love and take full advantage of his second chance at life, one can’t help but agree with him. Tess Carroll (Amanda Crew), an equally passionate sailor who has continued to compete and excel in her sport of choice, takes an interest in Charlie after realizing the extent of his respect for the dead while visiting her father’s grave. (Incidentally, there is a recurring comedic subplot involving Charlie and a cemetery-defacing gaggle of geese that is more than a little reminiscent of Bill Murray’s rivalry with a golf course gopher in Caddyshack -- and that’s not a bad thing.) Crew and Efron have an undeniable chemistry, and between them bring a surprising maturity to the film. Unfortunately, the final scene deviates from what would have been a solid ending to deliver a ham-fisted posthumous message of love, faith, healing, and the importance of letting go that had already been imparted quite concisely, without the weight of a thousand anvils to drive it home. Still, Charlie St. Cloud is a perfectly passable, if more than slightly saccharine, romance for a lazy summer afternoon.