Charlie St. Cloud

The in-flight schedule screamed out, “Zac Efron as never been seen before”.  It went on to describe how this was Efron’s first attempt @ a serious sort of a movie and not the usual Chick Flick & Musical stuff that we are used to seeing from him.  Now I am no Zac Efron fan but I must admit that I was quite intrigued with the strong write up.  Most importantly, I have, in the recent past, seen other chocolate boy heroes of the likes of Joseph Gordon Levitt (Inception, 500 Days of Summer) make a successful transition to what could be termed as quality movies.  Add to that, the summary of the movie seemed quite interesting and I was very keen to see if Efron could really pull off a role that would need significantly higher levels of intensity and emotions and not just preening around in the dreams of girls – something that Efron is really good at – and I mean that in a really positive way.

Charlie St. Cloud (Zac Efron) is around 18.  He is the eldest of 2 brothers.  Samuel (Charlie Tahan) is the younger of the two.  They are being bought up by their single mom Claire (Kim Bassinger) who is a nurse at a local hospital and works a double shift more often than not.  She needs to save money to put Sam through school and Charlie through to Stanford which he should make it through with a Sailing scholarship (I mean when will stuff like this ever come to India????).  Charlie is an ace sailor and teams up with Sam to win the local championship in grand style by a hair’s breadth, much to the joy of most people and the disappointment of his competition.  Charlie is about to celebrate the victory that evening but is told by Claire that he is on Sam duty coz she has to run her 2^nd shift. So Charlie spends time with Sam for a bit.  But his youth gets the better of him and he decides to play truant.  As he tries to sneak away, Sam catches up with him and insists that he should go along. Disgruntingly Charlie agrees.  As they are driving through the town and playing the fool while driving, they crash into a truck.  The paramedic, Florio Fiorentte (Ray Liotta) refuses to give up and in the process revives Charlie.  But is unable to save Sam.  Now Charlie has to live with the thought of being responsible for Sam’s untimely death.

CSC is a movie that runs extremely high on emotions.  It deals with the extremely sensitive topic of responsibility for someone’s death.  It is hard enough to live with the thought leave along having to deal with it personally.  And how does one deal with it if its your own kid brother? God knows none of us want to be in Charlie’s place.  Having said that, director Burr Steers still had to get the concept to life. His previous attempts would not have inspired too much confidence in anyone.  His only directorial effort before this was again with Zac Efron in that RomCom called 17 Again.  However, he does show that there is talent lurking somewhere in him.  Most scenes are handled very sensitively and effectively.  And surprise surprise – turns out that Zac Efron is NOT a one trick pony.  He plays the lead role of Charlie quite well and is able to emote very well in most situations.  The support cast is nothing to be too excited about.  Anyways it is a movie centred around a single character and I guess Mr. Efron has proven himself to the extent that he can be considered for future, more serious projects ala Joseph Gordon Levitt.  Although it must be said that Mr. Levitt far supersedes Mr. Efron in acting talent.  Yet another one not released in the motherland.  Should have been.  Would have done reasonably well I would guess.  6 on 10 from my side.