High School Musical Fans are going to be happy that Zac Efron is back in the highly anticipated and terribly disappointing Charlie St. Cloud based on a book by Ben Sherwood called The Death And Life Of Charlie St. Cloud.Having not read the book nor been able to sit and watch more than five minutes of High School Musical or any other Zac Efron performance as a matter of fact, this review is solely based on the feature film.
The movie begins with Charlie and his younger brother Sam winning a boat race which gets him a sailing scholarship to Stanford University. Charlie is a nice young man. He lives with his single mother played by the beautiful Kim Basinger who works double shifts as a nurse to make ends meet and he plays father figure to his younger sibling to whom he promises to practice baseball with, every day, until he leaves for college.
But just once in his life, he becomes a regular teenager and on that day his entire destiny will take a radical turn. One evening, Charlie who is supposed to attend a high school graduation party with his friends, sees his plans go terribly wrong when his mother announces that she has taken a double shift and he has to baby-sit Sam. Charlie waits for his brother to fall asleep to sneak out of the house, but he is caught by Sam who convinces him to drive him to a friend’s house. On the way, the two meet with a terrible accident and Sam dies on-the-spot. Though Charlie flatlines on his way to hospital, a persistent paramedic Florio manages to revive him and sedate him when he realises that Sam is dead.
Now that scene, though Déjà vu to a maximum, is quite touching because firstly seeing Ray Liotta play a good religious paramedic is somewhat of a novelty since I don’t believe I have seen him portray anything other than psychotic killers in the past decade. And let’s give the boy credit; Zac Efron is pretty good in that sequence. Though he is 23 years old, he could actually pass off for an 18 year old boy thanks to his physical appearance which gives him a sweet sort of ‘boy next door’ look.
On the day of the funeral, Charlie is unable to throw Sam’s baseball glove into the coffin and as he runs away from the grave site, he bumps into Sam’s wondering spirit. Remembering what he told his little brother, he makes him the promise to practice baseball everyday with him at sunset.
From that time onwards and for the next five years, Charlie St. Cloud’s life comes to a complete standstill. He gives up his scholarship to Stanford and takes up a job as a caretaker at a cemetery. From being a golden boy, he becomes known as the damaged one, the crazy person in town who talks to spirits in the cemetery who he alone can see. Unable to cope with the situation, his mother moves out of town.
Now let’s take this situation in real life context. The mother is a nurse. Her only living child has given up on life. Wouldn’t the logical thing be to get him some psychological help? No, he is left alone, to live in complete isolation with serious self confidence issues and talking to dead people.
And that could have gone on until he bumps into Florio again. The good paramedic, who is now sick and dying of cancer, is quick to figure out that the young man he once saved is letting his life just pass by. Charlie reluctantly accepts to have coffee with Florio and begins to slowly realise that he should be doing more than just playing baseball with his brother’s spirit!
He develops enough courage to speak to Tess who had noticed him several years before in high school. They share a common interest in sailing and one day Charlie is late for his play date with Sam because of her.
Let’s face it; this isn’t Lovely Bones. It isn’t dark, it does not surprise you. This is a shame because director Burr Steers directed Igby Goes Down a great coming of age comedy, he also directed episodes of Weeds, The L World and Big Love, which are perhaps some of the best TV series being produced these days. If he had been able to inject some of the more quirky aspects of his talent into Charlie St. Cloud, I am sure it would have caught the eye of a wider public and got better reviews.
Well filmed, decently acted, the culprit here is the script which makes a potentially touching story about the way one copes with the loss of a loved; sadly uninteresting.
Let’s hope Zac Efron gets better guidance for his next roles and I bet he regrets turning down the remake of Footloose! But for now, he is probably the best thing in Charlie St. Cloud.
Courtesy - The Sunday Leader -By Sumaya Samarasinghe
