Charlie St Cloud (Zac Efron) has won a sailing scholarship to university, but promises baseball mad younger brother Sam that he will join him for baseball practice for an hour every evening during the last summer holiday. When Sam is killed in a car crash, Charlie is still turning up for the evening's baseball practice with his brother's ghost five years later, having effectively put his life on hold. Then he encounters Tess (Amanda Crew) - they were at high school together and she is scheduled for a solo trans-world sailing contest - and, when it seems that she might be the one to shake Charlie away from his stagnation, it appears that maybe Sam isn't happy with the possibility.
All this was clear from the trailer, and in its own way is fairly routine ghost story / psychological drama stuff, executed tolerably well - the pre-accident stuff is done well enough to enable you to empathise with Charlie and Sam, Charlie is understandably morose through much of the remainder, and there is nice brotherly chemistry between Efron and young Charlie Tahan, and young romance chemistry between Efron and Crew.
But then the story jinked off to one side and took a couple of changes of direction which I didn't see coming, which really pleased me. And I'm not going to say any more, other than that the story is quite nicely constructed, and the resolution is satisfying.
All this was clear from the trailer, and in its own way is fairly routine ghost story / psychological drama stuff, executed tolerably well - the pre-accident stuff is done well enough to enable you to empathise with Charlie and Sam, Charlie is understandably morose through much of the remainder, and there is nice brotherly chemistry between Efron and young Charlie Tahan, and young romance chemistry between Efron and Crew.
But then the story jinked off to one side and took a couple of changes of direction which I didn't see coming, which really pleased me. And I'm not going to say any more, other than that the story is quite nicely constructed, and the resolution is satisfying.