Charlie St. Cloud Review: Next Time, Let Me Write It
August 3, 2010 by Trisha Leigh
Filed under feature overlay, Movies
I wanted to like this movie. Really. I had hopes that it might turn out to be in the vein of a Nicholas Sparks flick with the added bonus of Zac Efron’s handsome mug.
It didn’t quite turn out that way. In fact, whoever wrote this screenplay should be banned from ever writing anything again – even writing Lifetime or ABC Family movies are out of their league.
I must, up front, compliment Zac Efron on his performance. The kid has chops, and though I think this movie was a bad choice, I understand why someone advised him to take the role. The character of Charlie St. Cloud is dark, depressed, tortured – everything High School Musical was not. Efron has a wonderful ability to emote with his face and eyes. In so many cases the dialogue is superfluous because we, as an audience, know exactly how he’s feeling by simply looking at him. Sad. Conflicted. Desperate. It’s all there for the world to see and he’s really quite good. He reminds me very much of a young Leonardo DiCaprio: intent on proving himself as an actor and with a thirst to make movies that matter, but a little bit too good looking to be taken seriously. Leo managed to overcome his looks, and Zac should study DiCaprio’s career if he hopes to make a similar jump. He needs to be very, very careful about the roles he chooses. He needs to do a few gritty, painful low budget films to prove he not only has what it takes, but that he’s not afraid to do a movie people might not like. Most importantly, he needs to insist the director limit close-ups of his (admittedly striking) face to like, two per film. Charlie St. Cloud consisted of about…a hundred shots of Zac Efron’s face.
Back to the movie itself, now that I’m finished giving career advice to Zac Efron (who obviously reads my articles…hi Zac!).
Sometimes I go into a movie expecting it to be a little cheesy. That’s how I went into this film. It exceeded my expectations in an awful, overwritten, preposterous way. The beginning of the movie worked for me, building a believable and endearing relationship between Charlie (Zac Efron) and his little brother Sam (Charlie Tahan). Charlie has taken on a bit of a fatherly role, since their dad abandoned their family and their mom works hard to make ends meet. He’s taught his brother about sailing, baseball, and life. Charlie has been offered a sailing scholarship to Stanford and will be leaving at the end of the summer – but he promises to meet Sam every day at sunset to help him practice baseball. They are in a bad car accident that night, and both boys die. Charlie is brought back to life by a persistent paramedic but his brother is gone. Because of his brief stint on the “other side” Charlie can now see ghosts of people unwilling to pass from life to death – including his younger brother. Oddly enough, this is the most believable part of the script, the one I bought into most willingly. He gives up his scholarship and becomes something of the townie nutjob. He feels like he can’t leave because he would break the last promise he made his brother, and the guilt eating inside would eat him alive.
His life begins to change when he runs into Tess (Amanda Crew), a girl he went to high school with and shares his love of sailing. She is getting ready to embark on a trip around the world and we can see that Charlie still has similar dreams. His brother gets angry with him, accusing Charlie of forgetting him, of not loving him; that if Charlie forgot then Sam would cease to exist. I didn’t like the dynamic between the ghost Sam and Charlie. The little boy came off as an antagonist – someone who held Charlie back from living but didn’t care. His character was selfish and gave us no reason why he feared crossing over where he belonged. I never understood why, if he loved his big brother so much, he would want to steal his life from him.
I can’t reveal many specifics regarding the Tess storyline because there is a twist (that most people with neurons will see coming), but suffice to say Charlie is eventually forced to make a choice between Tess and his brother. Between the living and the dead. Between his past and his future. Etc.
The writing is atrocious. There are characters with no depth or purpose…really Charlie and Tess (at times) are the only ones who have any substance to them whatsoever. There are odd decisions, like a weird aside where Charlie scares ducks every day or his friend shows up with a random crossbow. The writer doesn’t trust the audience – one of my biggest pet peeves with screenplays. For example, the story chronicles Charlie’s inability to move on from the accident that changed his world. That’s what the entire film is about. We don’t need a character to SAY OUT LOUD ninety minutes into the film, “What will it be, Charlie? Are we going back or moving on?” I want to shout at the writer, WE GET THAT’S HIS STRUGGLE, SHUT UP AND LET HIM ACT. I refrained. I doubted the other 6 patrons in my theatre would appreciate my outburst.
The entire film is overwritten. The writer either didn’t trust his actors or filmmakers or audience, any one of which is a mistake. It could have been a moving story about loss and making the choice to move on with your life. Instead it bordered on ridiculous and at times was so unbelievable I nearly laughed out loud.
Skip this one entirely, unless you’re in the mood to lose yourself in some unfathomably huge blue eyes for a few hours. Zac, I believe you have the talent to make a legitimate career for yourself. You’re gonna have to be more picky about your projects.
Photo by Diyah Pera – © 2010 Universal Pictures.
Your review was pretty much word for word exactly what I thought of this movie. I read the book expecting it to be taken exactly from that but so many changes were made that it ruined it for me from the outset e.g. charlie being captain of the sailing team, the background of their father disappearing, Sam being able to see Tess etc etc.
This was the first Zac Efron film I have seen and I was really impressed by his performance, his face is so emotive. That seem to go without saying from all the reveiws. I hope he takes this on board and makes better choices in the future as he could go really far and fianlly get away from the ‘Disney’ image I hold of him. He was however far too pretty for his own damn good and I found it too distracting!
A poor poor film with one great performance. An amazing book however and I would encourage people to read it despite the negative associations from the movie. Kirsty.
When I watched charlie st. cloud all I could notice was tess’s teeth. And then after he saves her and they are on the dock at the end of the movie, her teeth are back to normal… no more veneers… they are back to being crooked and cute like they are supposed to be… bad editing i dont know if a lot of people notices but I did right away… watch the movie again and you’ll see.. dramatic difference.
Forget the sorry screen play and the two hours of my life I will never get back-I can’t believe no one mentioned the fact that Amanda Crews face completely changed at the end of the movie. She started out with huge veneers giving the impression of buck teeth. And then suddenly they were gone! What is that! It dramatically changed her appearance. Biggest problem with the movie.
I’m genuinely surprised at the people in the comments section here who liked this movie. Well, let me rephrase that–whether or not you like this movie is completely up to you, and you shouldn’t condemn anyone (especially the reviewer, who took her time to start this conversation with this review) for their opinions.
That said, I’m dismayed by some of these comments. “The best movie and story line I have seen”? And someone else said they thought the movie was well written…if a movie is well written, it shouldn’t have lines like “What will it be, Charlie? Are we going back or moving on?”, as the reviewer pointed out. That’s the point of a well-written movie: You trust your audience’s intelligence enough to not have to spell out every little thing like that.
There are a lot of lines like that in the movie, a number of inconsistencies (I won’t go into the big one, as it reveals the twist), a number of unneeded characters (Ray Liotta, did you just wander onto the set and demand a role?), and a lack of focus (those geese belong in High School Musical, not here).
I’m not hating on the movie for the sake of hating on it. If a movie can move me a little bit, it has succeeded. This one didn’t. If you’d like to check out a movie along the same vein (about loss and moving on, but much better written), try Up. Every single little plot point, character, and event in that movie has a purpose that propels it towards its conclusion. Sure, it doesn’t have Efron’s pretty blue eyes every 2 seconds, but it’ll captivate you in a way those eyes never will (at least, not until they’re paired with a great script).
This person clearly does not appreciate a good movie nor good actors. You see the book and the movie are both terific but people like this who think they know everything and are all snotty tend to ruin it for others who havent seen the movie. This has been the best movie and story libe i have seen and as for those who actually read this how could i put it in a nice way….um i advise not to read this stuck up persons reviwes if they only critize and compliant about a perfectly good movie. And honey maybe it should be you who should be banned from posting anything on line..you ungrateful person!
Wow, if only the movie had the feeling, passion, reality and integrity as this review does! ZE is beautiful and he’s a fantastic physical presence, what beautiful and agile body he has and emotive face. This movie failed him and everyone in it.
I believe it’s a good movie, and I think if they didn’t do whatever they did to the story then it won’t be as awesome as it is.
I saw the film, zac’s looks don’t change he’s a very good looking guy, but this movie made him ugly. it was not your best, and Amanda crew???? she’s ugly she has buck teeth a pointy face. .thank god your fans still love you but after that film . . wow it’s 1 of those movies that hit the dvd store fast. I think zac should be in a movie like titanic .
I was thinking of seeing this movie, but from what I’ve heard I guess I’ll just wait for the DVD. Bad writing is definitely a turn-off for me!
I actually thought the film was written well..after being involved and living through the “car accident losing a brother” thing firsthand, the film entirely shows the emotions and progression to recovery as in real life. Zac did an amazing job playing the roll, and I couldn’t possibly critique him in any way. Props to the message (effects of drinking and driving), actors, and writers. Great film, even though it did make me cry.. haha
Oh Zefron, I was really pulling for you with this film
I haven’t seen it yet, but it’s disappointing to hear about how awful the screenplay was. Guess I’ll wait til it’s out on DVD to get stare at Zac.
sorry be again…. I think your critic was dead on….. Screenwriters/Directors… should definitely trust the audience!!!!!
Hi Trisha,
You’re hilarious by the way…. I’m glad that you did not “trash” his abilities as an actor (Zac Efron’s that is) as many reviews have done. I think the young man does have a lot of potential…. I guess I feel that the movie was too “clean-cut” for me…..