Charlie St Cloud (2010)
Fatherless golden high school boy Charlie St. Cloud had a golden future, handsome, popular and admitted to Stanford on a scholarship, even recruited for a prestigious yacht sailing team. But shortly after graduating, Charlie feels existentially guilty about the death of his doting, beloved kid brother Sam whom he was driving to a playmate. Charlie pledges to continue the baseball practice he promised to continue until entering Stanford, which he now ditches for a menial job as graveyard keeper, while their mother shamelessly moved out of state, and tends to the grave of his Vietnam-killed former school buddy Sully, the second ghost who binds his sole to their beach home town. He's finally tempted to start living his own life again when he meets a female sailor his age about to embark on a transatlantic voyage and spends a steamy night, but still can't 'leave Sam'. Only when he hears the authorities give up searching for her, having gone missing at sea during a storm, he misses a 'practice' at the beach when the morning cannon is fired, hoping to save her life.
Life is for living
Tess Carroll: You didn't die in that car crash, Charlie.
Charlie St. Cloud: Actually, I did.
Eagle Harbour, West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
(street scenes)
Friday Harbor, Washington, USA
(Quincy)
Gibsons, British Columbia, Canada
North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Amanda Crew actually learned how to sail a boat for the film. In some scenes, you can make out bruises on her legs which was the price she paid for her lessons.
Zac Efron underwent three weeks of intensive training in how to sail a boat. He proved to be so adept at it that no stunt double was required for him in most of the longshots of Charlie St. Cloud sailing.
The chief reason why Ray Liotta took on the film was his 10-year-old daughter, who was desperate to meet Zac Efron. A similar reason impelled Kim Basinger to take on the role of the mother, i.e., her daughter Ireland.
The town where the St. Clouds live is actually a composite of four different towns in the Vancouver area.
Chris Massoglia was originally chosen to play an 18 year old version of Sam to be more faithful to the final scene of the book, but for reasons unknown, he was replaced by Charlie Tahan in the final film.
Continuity
Zac Efron had a mole on his left cheek removed after principal photography wrapped in October 2009. In May of 2010 he did a re-shoot of the scene where he shows Tess his new boat. The mole is present for the whole film, then disappears.
At 1:00:21 when Charlie tells Tess "I just can't," both his arms have been up, grasping poles, but when the camera changes, his right arm is down.
When Charlie is caught by Tess looking at her boat, the collar on his jacket is lying flat. Right before he says, "Flukes!" the collar is up, then down again.
Factual errors
The burn marks on Charlie's chest would not happen unless there was a flammable substance on his chest when he was defibrillated (and if this was the case you would have seen flames after defibrillation in the ambulance scene). Regular defibrillation does not leave any marks or scars.
When Charlie's EKG is 'flat-lining' (asystole), the paramedic defibrillates him. Defibrillation only works when there is pre-existing electrical activity in the heart, if the patient doesn't have any electrical activity ('flat-lining') resuscitation it achieved with drugs and CPR.
Revealing mistakes
When Charlie and Sam are sliding on garbage cans in the forest during "mud games", the area they slide upon is too green, too well-defined, and obviously a "slip and slide" created with Astroturf.
Anachronisms
At the beginning of the movie (set in 2005) when they are showing a Redsox-Yankees game, they show Dustin Pedroia. Pedroia wasn't on the Sox until 2006.
Character error
Charlie mispronounces the location of the Red Sox's AAA team in Pawtucket, RI, as "PAW-tuck-it." It is actually "paw-TUCK-it" and, since most locals pronounce it "puh-TUCK-it" - with the "aw" part barely vocalized - this is how most people associated with the Red Sox organization pronounce it as well.
In the graduation scenes, Charlie and the other students with the yellow honors stoles were wearing them backwards, the ends should be in front, not back.