Dhruv Sharma
While some might see ‘Charlie St. Cloud’ as an over-the-top supernatural tale of hope, others will be able to appreciate it for its grounded depiction of a man’s redemption and his struggle to leave his past behind. The film’s premise primarily revolves around the protagonist’s grief at the death of his younger brother who first regrets the choices he made in his past, then gives them an afterthought, and then finally overcomes his guilt. Apart from being very moving, the film also packs some timely twists and turns throughout its runtime that eventually lead up to its end. So here’s a detailed explanation of the movie.
Plot Summary
Charlie, who’s about to graduate high school, isn’t from a very rich family but has a loving mother, a brother he deeply cares for, and several accolades under his belt that pave his way for university. Before he leaves for college, he promises his brother, that he’ll practice baseball every day with him. The day of Charlie’s graduation finally arrives. On the same night, Charlie, who wants to party with his school friends for the last time, is asked to babysit his brother. When he tries to sneak out of his home, his brother, Sam, catches him and blackmails him to drop him to his friend’s place. This is when Charlie’s life completely changes.
A car accident kills his brother, and for a few moments, he, too, “flatlines.” During these moments, Charlie has an out of body experience where Sam asks him to hold onto his hand. But that’s when a paramedic revives him and Sam is forced to let go of his brother. During Sam’s funeral, Charlie refuses to believe that his brother his dead, and with his brother’s baseball glove in his hand, he rushes to the woods. That’s where, to his surprise, he finds Sam’s spirit waiting for him to practice baseball as he had promised him earlier.
Charlie’s regret gets the best of him, whereas, Sam refuses to accept his death. And thus, Charlie meets him every day at sunset and practices baseball with him. Charlie craves a normal life, but his love for his brother outweighs everything else and he hates the fact that he survived the accident while his brother did not. So he picks up a job at the cemetery where his brother is buried and gives up on everything else. That’s when a girl from Charlie’s high school, Tess Carroll, comes in his life and gives him a new sense of purpose.
What Happened to Tess?
Charlie first meets Tess at the boat docks where she tells him about her plans of traveling the world in her boat. Post this, she meets him at the cemetery and Charlie notices a small wound on her head. He patches her up and soon, starts spending more time with her. This marks the inception of Charlie’s transformation. The more his relationships with Tess blooms, the more Sam starts feeling neglected. One day, when Charlie shows up late for practice, Sam even tells him that he feels like he’s starting to disappear.
Just when Charlie finds himself at this crossroads of moving on with Tess or sticking close to his deceased brother, he learns that Tess went missing a few days earlier. This makes him realize that all this while, he wasn’t with the real Tess but was with her ghost and that’s the reason why she had that wound on her head. Just how he was able to see Sam after he died, he was also able to see Tess. This also reveals the true meaning of the note that Tess had left behind on his door which said: “Come Find Me.” And it’s this note that makes Charlie realize that she could still possibly be alive. It is at this point that Charlie finally untangles the mess he is in and chooses to pursue his love for Tess instead of holding onto his brother.
The Ending: Charlie’s True Purpose
There’s a scene in the early moments of the film where Charlie ends up meeting the paramedic, Florio, who saved his life. Florio, who later gets cancer, tells Charlie that he has no regrets in life because he got to experience a miracle when saved his life. But at that point, Charlie seems too regretful towards his brother’s death and he refuses to believe that his life has a deeper purpose. But on the night when Charlie discovers that Tess has been missing all this while, Florio’s wife shows up at Charlie’s cabin and gives him Florio’s “Saint Jude” medallion, where Jude is the saint of all lost causes.
This is when Tess’ “Come Find Me” note gives Charlie some hope and he sees a clearer path he wants to head in. Even after knowing that he may not be able to play catch with his brother, Charlie takes the risk of setting sail again and finding Tess. With his friend, he steals a boat from the dock, and using his experience as a sailor, he deduces where Tess could be. Parallelly, at sunset, Sam shows up to play with Charlie but realizes that his brother won’t be coming there anymore. Although he finds it hard to swallow this bitter truth, he accepts it and tells Charlie that he’ll always love him. From his state of limbo, as Sam makes his way to heaven, he becomes a shooting star that guides Charlie to the location where Tess’ boat had crashed. With this, Charlie is able to reach her location on time and save her.
In the final moments of the movie, although Tess remembers nothing, she claims that she saw Charlie in her dreams. That’s when Charlie assures her that what she saw was not a dream. This goes back to all the scenes where Tess had her own out-of-body limbo experience. In the closing scene, Charlie sets sail on his boat again and embarks on a journey to live his dream of traveling the world with Tess. But at the same time, he promises his brother that he’ll never forget him.
The ending shows how Tess not only made Charlie fall in love but gave him the opportunity to move past all the regrets that were holding him back. Charlie constantly blamed himself for the death of his brother and even when Florio tried to convince him that he had a deeper purpose, he refused to believe it. But in the end, he realizes that the only reason why he survived that car accident was to later be able to save another soul from dying. With this, he is finally able to leave all of his regret behind him as he now understands that everything happens for a reason. Or in other words, as Florio would say: “Nothing is a lost cause.”
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