The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud
Dir: Burr Steers
2010
*
2010's The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud is based on Ben Sherwood's 2004 novel about a boy who, after surviving a car crash, gains the ability to see dead people and not quite dead people. It's a fairly wishy-washy semi-religious load of nonsense really but it calls itself 'spiritual' to cater to all tastes and because no religion would ever take it seriously. It's something for the non-church going believers shall we say, them and 14 year old girls. I have many gripes with this kind of emotionally inept teen drama but the biggest one is that the overall message actually contradicts itself. In order for our main character to become less selfish he has to become more selfish, that's the crux of it although certainly not the intention. I don't fully understand how people who aren't dead yet can have ghosts either but then I guess i'm just not 'spiritual' enough and need something other than the worlds most beautiful eyebrows to look at. There is one scene where our 18 year old protagonist sits in his house drinking whiskey on his own, like he's Philip Marlowe or some cop who is about to retire because he is 'Too old for this S**t'. It's really that cringeworthy.