Miraculously

"High School Musical"-Star Zac Efron has proven with movies like "I & Orson Welles" that he can do more than just sing and dance his way into teen hearts. "Miraculously," while clearly appealing to Efron's typical demographic, gives the actor repeated opportunities to showcase the talent he definitely possesses.

Charlie St. Cloud (Efron) has a bright future ahead of him. With an athletic scholarship in his pocket, the avid sailor has just successfully graduated from high school. But the dream of a successful future away from his small hometown is abruptly shattered when Charlie and his little brother Sam (Charlie Tahan) are involved in a car accident that kills Sam. In the final moments, as Charlie also sees his own life coming to an end, he promises his little brother that he will always be there for him. When he is brought back to life by the emergency doctor Florio (Ray Liotta), Charlie vows to keep his promise as well.

And so he meets with the ghost of Sam day after day, giving up all his plans in return. A few years later, however, when Charlie reunites with his old schoolmate, successful sailor Tess (Amanda Crew), he is jolted out of his reclusive existence for the first time in a long time. Soon he has to decide if he's ready to let Sam go. But then SOMETHING happens that makes Charlie see his future, and especially his ability to see his late brother's ghost, in a whole new light...

."Miraculously" combines elements from films like "The sixth Sense", "In the Sign of the Dragonfly", and "Field of Dreams", though director Burr Steers ("17 Again") unfortunately repeatedly lays it on too thick and lets the psychic kitsch dominate the proceedings. Steers, who with his wonderful film "Igby" actually proved to have a good knack for dealing with topics like grief, love and the difficulties of growing up in a completely unsentimental way, turns Ben Sherwood's novel into a teen drama smothered by an overdose of religiously tinged sentimentality that keeps the viewer emotionally distant due to a lack of subtle staging.

However, this is not due to the convincing actors, nor the dreamlike atmospheric locations in British Columbia. Here Steers and his team have created a world, in which one would like to travel as a viewer also immediately or even move there. If Steers had held back a little in his staging and had not served the viewer every plot element so obviously on a platter, a really emotionally moving drama with a supernatural touch could have been created in this fascinatingly beautiful scenery, which captivates and moves the viewer. Thus, "As if by a miracle" has become merely a nice-looking fairy tale for a younger target audience, which leaves viewers over 16 but strangely cold. Therefore: only conditionally worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp