I should open this review by admitting that the only Zac Efron film I’ve ever seen prior to Charlie St. Cloud was the perfectly passable Orson and Me. I thought that the kid did okay in that particular flick, in fact I thought it might help him to branch out from his lucrative but oh-so-cheesy beginnings in High School Musical and the like. My hopes were, like Zefron himself, a little bit premature as his latest release, The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud, confirms.
The basic premise is that, after the death of his little brother in a car accident that he almost dies in himself, Zac sees dead people. The untimely death of his brother leads to Zeffers giving up his scholarship to become a groundsman at the graveyard (that way he can stay in his home town and play baseball with the deceased), throwing punches at anyone who dares to quip him about his driving skills and to some rather unconvincing scenes in which Zac rounds off half a bottle of Jack Daniels to himself as though he were some kind of embittered old-timer who had seen too much pain to have faith in anything anymore. Of course, once his dream girl comes on the scene – the hauntingly beautiful Amanda Crew – all this starts to change.
If I’m honest it would be really easy to pick on this film. The concept, and the name of the leading character, is quite sickly and the loss of a loved one is hardly untouched cinematic stomping ground but, for what it is, there is actually quite a bit to like. Ray Liota, for example, puts in an excellent supporting performance as the paramedic who brings St. Cloud back from the dead and guides him, one way or another, at pivotal points in the picture. The producers also managed to pacify me early on by choosing a child actor who didn’t annoy the hell out of me to play Zefron’s younger brother: Sam. Charlie Tahar as Sam is neither sickeningly sweet nor unbelievable nor cluelessly flat; he’s just right in fact and it this goes a long way to help the audience buy into the brothers’ relationship. Plus, and to my admitted surprise, this film does demonstrate that Efron has a lot of acting promise in comparison to his contemporaries (Shia LaBeouf springs to mind. He’s only 1 year older than Zefron and has a mysteriously much better rep). The emotionally taxing circumstances, not to mention the best friend with a rather dodgy Aussie accent, offer Zac the opportunity to explore the subtler edges of his acting abilities and he well and truly steps up.
I’m not going to lie: I could have done without his brother turning into a shooting star. At that moment a line was crossed for me. There was also a bit of a feeling that the audience, mostly comprised of young girls between the ages of 8 and 14, didn’t really get what they came for until the third act when Zac tore off his shirt to reveal a rock-hard chest before diving into the ocean in a bid to become a hero. Of course as a more mature audience member I could see beyond those precision pecks to the fact that this guy can actually act and does deserve, after this and the previously mentioned Orson and Me, to be taken a little bit more seriously and to be thought of as somebody a little bit more important than that-guy-from-High-School-Musical.
To conclude this film definitely has a specific audience in mind (the 8 year old girl sitting next to me at the screening to be precise) but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things in there for other people. I wouldn’t make it top of my watch list but I’ve certainly sat through less revealing, more insipid productions and in terms of wild abandon and escapism the scene in which Zeffers and his new chippie hook up for the first time is one of the most convincingly and beautifully shot romance scenes I’ve seen this year: it’s night time at the graveyard and silhouettes flicker under the irridescent glow of lanterns. It really does have a certain magic to it and as a result I left the cinema with a sprawling smile on my face. But then, as the film shamelessly flaunts at every opportunity, looking into Zac Efron’s eyes can have that effect on a girl.
The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud hits UK cinemas 8th October
DIRECTOR: BURR STEERS
SCREENPLAY: CRAIG PEARCE, LEWIS COLICK
CAST: ZAC EFRON, CHARLIE TAHAN, AMANDA CREW, RAY LIOTA
RUNTIME: 99 MINS
COUNTRY: USA, CANADA
