Charlie St. Cloud (Zac Efron) has a promising future. He’s a skilled sailor and ready to attend Stanford. He has a younger brother, Sam (Charlie Tahan), who looks up to him and a mother (Kim Basinger) who works hard to support her family. All that changes after a tragic accident leaves his brother dead and Charlie overcome with grief.
On his way to an after-graduation party, Charlie and Sam are in a car accident. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, Charlie flat lines, but the paramedic working on him, Florio (Ray Liotta) doesn’t give up, and Charlie is given a second chance and survives.
Fast forward five years, and Charlie is a caretaker who lives in a cemetery and takes care of the grounds. This involves cleaning duck poop off the headstones, chasing away the ducks from the grounds, and taking care of the plots. He never made it to Stanford, he hasn’t sailed in five years, and he’s pretty much regarded as the town crazy. Oh and every night, he plays catch with his dead brother Sam.
When a classmate from high school, Tess (Amanda Crew) is missing at sea, Charlie realizes why he was given a second chance and joins the search to find his missing classmate. I can’t really reveal any more about this storyline, as it would give too much away.
Charlie cried a lot in this movie. A lot. However, it was truly part of the story, unlike a certain vampire series where the lead male character cries a lot. Anyway, Efron has come a long way from the “High School Musical” series, and he showed it in this movie.
This is a straight-up drama. Don’t go see it expecting to laugh. Do expect to cry (possibly). Slightly reminiscent of “The Sixth Sense” (minus the thriller factor), “Charlie St. Cloud” is a good story with fine acting and overall a decent film.
