Book vs. Movie: Charlie St. Cloud

By Russ Bickerstaff

August 4, 2010

I owe it all to milk, kid. Milk and steroids.

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Having less time to explore the relationship between Tess and Charlie, the romantic end of the story ends up being much more dramatically intensified. The film skips a large portion of the initial dinner date between the two. This isn’t missed as much as one might expect. An earlier meeting between the two establishes the sailing connection and does much of the work of the earlier end of the romance. The revelation that Tess is, in fact, a spirit is handled much more bluntly here. The book’s chance encounter between Tess and Sam is considerably moodier and more disturbing than the sudden, dramatic scene in the film. Charlie hears that Tess’s boat crashed and she’s disappeared just as we see Tess looking in a window only to see that she casts no reflection. Though we do get a taste of many of the same interactions between Charlie and Tess in the film that we do in the book, the complexity of everything washes away and even Tess’s apparent death comes across with considerably less impact in the film.

And then there is the inevitable search for Tess. The choice to try to save her over meeting with Sam and Sam’s subsequent passing into the spirit world for good are much less overwhelmingly obvious and melodramatic in the film. Charlie’s on the boat when he finally realizes that he must continue the search or return to land in time for sunset to meet with Sam. By then, it’s more of a foregone conclusion…and Sam’s passing is handled in a cheesy, Spielbergian flash of images from earlier in the film. Rather than taking the form of a cloud as he does in the book, we see a shooting star pointing to Tess’ exact location. Charlie utters Sam’s name and leaps into action. Very Hollywood.



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The film rectifies Tess’ anticlimactic coma, moving straight to a scene between she and Charlie in which she comes to realize that those dreams of her with him actually happened. In a final scene, we see Sam meet-up with Charlie one last time. Rather than showing-up as the adult he would never get to be, he shows up again in the same form. He says something along the lines of “we’ll never get to see what will never be.” The two exchange the vow that they will always be brothers and Charlie goes off to meet Tess. The camera pulls away. The credits roll.

The Verdict/b>

Sherwood’s book makes for an interesting story that isn’t delivered all that well, due in great part to the narrative’s relentlessly wholesome folksiness. The film had the potential to go for a darker, more nuanced take on the story - a potential that it only halfway meets. While the film’s treatment of Sam and Charlie’s relationship seems that much more complex than it does in the book, the romance between Charlie and Tess lacks enough time between the two lovers to develop the kind of complexity necessary for a completely well-rounded presentation of the story. As a result, the romantic end of the film feels a bit flat in comparison to the book.

The film’s inability to deliver completely on the romance between Tess and Charlie dooms its chances for commercial success in the long run. Ideally, Charlie St. Cloud should appeal equally to both men and women. The brother-to-brother thing would appeal to men the way the romantic angle would appeal to women. Without enough time spent on the romance to show its complexity, the film misses half its audience - and with so many movies currently in release that appeal to men and so few that appeal to women, the film isn’t going to be that successful. Efron is already bringing quite a few women to theaters, but when they get there, they don’t get nearly enough romance to make it worth the effort in the first place. Research shows that nearly 80% of the opening weekend audience was female. A film with a $44 million production budget has only grossed $12 million its opening weekend. The film is unlikely to be the kind of success the novel has been for Sherwood.


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