Charlie St. Cloud. Rated PG-13 for language including some sexual references, an intense accident scene and some sensuality.

In Charlie St. Cloud, Zac Efron is angelic in more ways than one.

First off, do not make the mistake of dismissing Charlie St. Cloud because of Zac Efron. If this movie proves anything, its that Zac Efron is a talented actor. The movie has it’s flaws, but Efron’s passionate performance is one of it’s strengths.

Set against the backdrop of sailing culture in the beautifully photographed Pacific northwest, Charlie St. Cloud focuses on the unique bond between two brothers. Charlie and Sam make a mean sailing team despite the significant age gap between them. Charlie is graduating high-school and Sam is not yet in junior high. Having two younger brothers, I was struck by the accuracy of the film’s portrayal of the rhythms and buried emotions of brotherhood, the way a jab to the shoulder can signify love and deep loyalty. Brotherhood, as a theme, is handled well.

The other principal theme is not handled so well. If you’ve seen the trailer, it is no spoiler that Sam is killed in a car wreck. Charlie is too, sort of. After flatlining for several minutes, he is jolted back to life by a pious paramedic played by Ray Liotta. The brush with death transforms Charlie into a brooding young hermit with the off-and-on ability to communicate with the dead.

A subject that is presented as eerie and disturbing in The Sixth Sense, the interaction of the living and the dead, is here presented uncritically as sweet and almost normal. In fact, the main flaws of Charlie St. Cloud are the inconsistent rules that govern these interactions (like why can Charlie only see some dead people?), and the way the film glosses over the patent weirdness of it all. At certain moments the audience will ask “did Charlie just… ? With a dead girl… ? Oh, that’s weird. That’s real weird.” But, the film won’t hesitate for your misgivings. It stays on course, vindicating Charlie’s “faithfulness” to his dead brother and romanticizing his other necrological relationships.

Zac Efron and Director Burr Steers do their best to steer this film North of sappy, but at times it slams against melodramatic outcroppings. Efron has proved he is likable and a strong enough performer to carry a film, but if he ever wants to rise to the likes of Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt (I believe he’s capable), he’ll have to choose his projects a little more carefully.