THE DEATH AND LIFE OF CHARLIE ST CLOUD (12A)

ZAC Efron has become a teen pin-up across the world thanks to the phenomenally successful High School Musical franchise.

Having bid a tearful farewell to his all-singing, all-dancing role as Troy Bolton, the 22-year-old actor has continued to court the same audience with wholesome, family-oriented roles in 17 Again and Hairspray.

Richard Linklater’s 2008 drama Me & Orson Welles was a baby step toward more weighty fare and The Death and Life of Charlie St Cloud continues that gradual transition to serious leading man.

Based on a novel by Ben Sherwood, Burr Steers’s supernatural love story gifts Efron a spooky sixth sense.

He sees dead people – more specifically, the spirit of the younger brother who died in his arms following a car accident.

Consumed with grief, the character puts his entire life on hold to remain in limbo with the spirit.

The point is abundantly clear, and slathered in sticky sweet sentiment: love never dies.

Charlie St Cloud (Efron) is a talented sailor, who always wins his local regatta with his 11-year- old brother Sam (Charlie Tahan).

The boys are inseparable but when Charlie wins a scholarship to Stanford the siblings face up to the prospect of having to forge separate paths through life.

Before he leaves, Charlie makes a pledge to Sam that they will play one hour of baseball every day to ensure his little brother can pitch properly.

They will meet in the woods at sunset when the cannon fires.

Soon after tragedy strikes and Charlie encounters Sam’s spirit in the woods, and the young man agrees to return at sunset every day to honour the promise.

Five years pass and Charlie now works in the local cemetery with best friend Alistair (Augustus Prew).

Out of the blue, Charlie develops a crush on Tess Carroll (Amanda Crew), who intends to sail around the world.

As his feelings deepen, Charlie must make a heartbreaking choice between the living and the dead.

The Death and Life of Charlie St Cloud is a valentine to the leading man and the picturesque locations.

Efron looks beautiful in close-up with saltwater coursing down his softly lit cheeks as Craig Pearce and Lewis Colick’s screenplay veers between the metaphysical and the mawkish.

Crew is hilariously miscast, proving comic relief for an entirely different film, and the histrionics of the final half hour strain credibility.

Steers’s film is at its best in the intimate scenes between Efron and Tahan, and the two actors spark well off each other.

“You remember me telling you I kissed Jenny? I lied,” Sam confesses sadly to Charlie.

“Trust me, you’re not missing much,” smiles the older brother, doling out sage advice even after death.

Steers’s film hovers in a similar limbo between lifeless, emotionally manipulative tosh and a genuinely moving study of grief.

STAR RATING: **