Tweens 'n' Teens: Charlie St. Cloud

Hey editor Mike here from thesubstream and I would like to welcome our newest contributor to the site, our tweens 'n' teens cinema specialist, my little sister Amanda. We're going to make her go watch all the movies that we don't want to see ourselves and then make her tell us and you about them. Up first: the Zac Efron vehicle Charlie St. Cloud.

Warning: this interview contains a lot of spoilers for Charlie St. Cloud.



Mike: So what happens in Charlie St. Cloud?

Amanda: Um Zac Efron is awesome and good at sailing, then his brother dies and then he can see ghosts… and then he falls in love with a ghost and then he saves a girl's life and then they are in love.

M:So he falls in love with his brother's ghost?

A: No, he just can see ghosts and then falls in love with a girl, but then it turns out she was a ghost.

M:But that... was that a surprise?

A: Yeah.

M:So we probably shouldn't write that in the first paragraph.

A: Yeah. Oops.

M:Anyway. We'll put a thing at the top about spoilers. How does he get to see ghosts?  

A: OK, so when his brother dies, his heart stops too and then, well… from then on he can see ghosts.

M:Why do both of their hearts stop? Did they eat poison together?

A: No, they got in a car crash. Zac Efron died for like a minute and then came back to life. And then he could see ghosts.

M:Does it have a happy ending or a sad ending?

A: It has a happy ending.

M:How does it have a happy ending if his brother is dead and he's in love with a girl that's a ghost?

A: Well she's not actually dead.

M:What?

A: It doesn't… this movie doesn't make any sense. He… manifests a ghost of her.

M:He manifests a ghost of her?

A: Yeah, like he… I don't even know. They date for a couple days and then she's supposed to be leaving on this big 6 month sailing tour and he's like "you're making me not hang out with my brother's ghost, go away" and then he gets drunk and then the next day he goes to a coffee shop and the coast guard comes in and says "this boat has been missing for three days", which is the exact amount of time that he's been hanging out with this girl.

M:Uh huh.

A: And it's her boat so then he's like "oh so thats how come I could talk to her, she was a ghost" but then he figures out that she's not actually a ghost because something about St. Jude and "there are no lost causes", so he steals a boat and goes to where she has to be, he's the only one that could know where she is because he's a fellow sailor and he knows she would have turned like this and that, right into the storm or something.

M:That sounds ridiculous.

A: It makes no sense. It was the worst. It was laugh out loud the worst.

M:So do you still want Zac Efron to be your boyfriend?

A: Oh yes. He is soooo dreamy. I don't know if it was his agent or him, or the director, but they figured out how to get him to highlight all his best assets in every single frame.

M:What are his best assets?

A: He's got dreamy baby blue eyes with really long eyelashes that they lit in every scene to be really sparkly, he's got really perfect foofy-perfect hair, and he's got those arm muscles with veins and he pulls on boat ropes a lot, which is cool.

M:Does he get to sing or dance at all?

A: No but he chases geese a lot. And theres a part where his ghost brother hits him in the nuts with a baseball and they surf in the rainwater on trashcan lids. And with 10 minutes left he finally takes his shirt off which… I thought it was weird that it took so long in a movie about Zac Efron sailing. That was the best part.

M:What was the worst part?

A: The worst was when his brother, his dead baby brother's ghost literally "walked into the light" and became a shooting star that pointed in the direction that the girl's crashed boat would be.

M:Would this movie be good for tweens 'n' teens that like Zac Efron?

A: Uh… yeah. He cries a lot and takes his shirt off. But I would have walked out if not for how handsome he was.

M:What do you give it out of 10?

A: 10 out of 10 for dreaminess and I dunno… 2 out of 10 for movieness.

M:Ok thanks, bye!

M: Bye now.

Addendum: 10 minutes after our phone interview Amanda texted me this addition: "OH! also it made dad cry".