Charlie St. Cloud – Review
I’m sure most of Zac Efron’s teen fan base from his High School Musical days will flock to see Charlie St. Cloud for the actor, but they’ll be startled on the overall somber attitude of the film, compared to what they might expect from his name being on a poster. I’m also sure he was cast for who he is, producers do that all the time, so that’s no real biggie, and he gives a solid performance that up until this point in his post-Disney career is an early attempt to deliver rather than produce. He succeeds, playing the emotionally distant title character. Charlie St. Cloud on paper probably smells like left-overs from Nicholas Sparks, with the forced sentimentality that those films reek of. Yet it isn’t.
They say everyone handles death differently. No matter how prepared you think you are, death always throws a curve ball into your life, and it’s how we adjust to the pitch, that determines a lot more than we blindly foresee at that given time. I assume many of the people that see this film will connect with it differently, based on your own personal experiences with death. But we bring our own baggage into any movie regardless, consciously or subconsciously, and while Charlie St. Cloud doesn’t do anything new and it might be a little predictable, it tries, making for a better-than-it-should-be aura to the film.
The cinematography is great; many scenes look like real-life Thomas Kincaid paintings. Again, the acting is really good, with everyone having chemistry, especially Efron and Amanda Crew. Sadly, Kim Basinger is wasted, barely making a cameo appearance in the film, and Ray Liotta’s character feels like a victim of editing. Still, director Burr Steers crafts a solid looking film, one that is like a stew that your mom makes to get rid of left overs, with those being Ghost, Sixth Sense, and [insert Nicholas Sparks movie of choice here], but it still fills you up anyway. Charlie St. Cloud is a somber, yet heartfelt look at the journey of moving on after a loved one’s death, that’s sweet enough to please, even if we’ve been on this road before.
Rating: 
