by John P. Meyer

He's haunted by his past -- and his pesky dead brother.

Zac Efron represents a troublesome conundrum: he's so pretty that he ought to be good for nothing but light entertainment eye candy. The problem with such appearance-based notions is this: he's shaping up to be a fine young actor capable of taking on challenging roles.

Which Efron demonstrates in his latest star turn as Charlie St. Cloud, directed by Burr Steers and based on the novel by Ben Sherwood. Working with a plot that sounds like something rummaged from the waste basket of Nicholas Sparks, director Steers and star Efron show themselves capable of elevating potentially laughable material to the level of superior tear-jerking romance. (Scripters Craig Pearce and Lewis Colick probably have something to do with it, also.)

Charlie and his 11-year-old brother Sam (Charlie Tahan) have just won a regatta held in the bay beside their Pacific Northwest seaside community. It's nothing new for the two, who have piloted the "Splendid Splinter" to plenty of prior victories, relying on a combination of teamwork and tactics. They pose for a victory photograph, accepting accolades from friends and good-natured harassment from their vanquished competitors.

Charlie is on the verge of graduating from high school, making plans to attend Princeton on a sailing scholarship. His mom Claire (Kim Basinger), a nurse, works double shifts at the hospital to help him finance his college living expenses. Charlie promises Sam, an avid Boston Red Sox fan, that they can spend an hour every day practicing fielding skills. They designate their meeting time as "sunset cannons," in reference to the town's tradition of firing off a volley as the sun slips beneath the westward waves. (Try that in Plano, see who shows up at your front door.)

On an evening when Claire is away at work, Charlie pulls "Sam duty." He reluctantly acquiesces when Sam requests to be driven to a friend's house to watch a baseball game. During this nerve-wracking road sequence, we know that something bad is going to happen and we know more or less what it's going to be -- but we don't know when or from whence it's coming. The impact -- when it arrives -- takes us by horrified surprise. Just as it does Sam and Charlie.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, Charlie's bright and expansive future transforms into a murky purgatory, contracting to the point that he can't imagine a place for himself beyond the confines of his backwater hometown. He takes a job as caretaker of the local cemetery, residing in a cabin on its shoreward slopes after Claire moves off to Portland.

Five years hence, Tess Carroll (Amanda Crew), one of Charlie's old sailing competitors, returns to town aboard a decked-out blue water yacht in which she intends to pull off a solo 'round-the-world voyage. She's resplendent at the wheel, with flowing, chestnut-hued locks streaming in the breeze. Tess is long and lean, with the stems of a thoroughbred pony. She later runs into Charlie at the cemetery, while visiting the grave of her father. With eye contact comes the crackle of subliminal sparks, as she recognizes Charlie as that fondly-remembered young man once so full of vim and (it goes without saying) vigor, now reduced to shooing geese from among the headstones of the dead. Oh, the pathos!

Meanwhile, every evening at cannons, Charlie rushes off, baseball mitt in the crook of his elbow, to the forest clearing where he and his ghost bro horse around for an hour playing pitch and catch. They also converse at length about what's going on in the world (well, in Charlie's world, anyway). Tahan brings a warm humanity to his disembodied role, allowing us to wonder whether it might be better for him to pass on to wherever he's going, or whether indeed his older brother is doing him a boon by keeping him tethered to the land of the living. Sam particularly likes receiving news of the latest pro baseball games.

Tess provides an incentive for Charlie to lower his emotional defenses and allow himself to see beyond the cemetery. He invites her to dinner in his humble cabin, decked out with charts and timetables and sketches of sailboat designs. She looks fetching, draped languidly across a filing cabinet in low-cut, decidedly non-sailor wear. Charlie proves ripe to be fetched.

Here the story takes a peculiar detour into Twilight Zone territory. The twisty late-stage reveal caught me by complete surprise, though looking back at the clues it probably shouldn't have. Which must mean I was being swept along on the tide of the dramatic narrative, just as the filmmakers intended.

Several elements beyond directing and scripting deserve mention when the question arises as to why I think this film surpasses its chick flick genre limitations.

• ONE: a showcase for unfamiliar and cast-against-type talent. Both young Tahan and Augustus Prew, who plays Charlie's charming, wise-cracking assistant caretaker Alistair, deliver characterizations rife with personality and charm. They seem like people we know, or people we might know if we knew more interesting people. (Sorry, Facebook friends!) Ray Liotta, as med tech Florio Ferrente, turns in an uncharacteristically sympathetic performance as the guy who brings Charlie back to life after the terrible accident that kicks the story into gear. It's always a pleasant change of pace to see Ray portraying a good guy.

• TWO: the spectacularly rugged British Columbia coastline locations. How comparatively lackluster it would have been had the Marblehead, Massachusetts setting been utilized as originally planned.

• THREE: the naturalistic, unpretentious dialog. These seem to be real people with real connections sharing real conversations. (Except for the occasional quoting of E.E. Cummings.)

• FOUR: the pervasive twilight sensibility of the entire production. The feel of the narrative is that of a borderland reality, in which it comes as no great surprise that the dead return to converse (and toss around baseballs) with the living. For this we must thank, one supposes, the cinematographer and the production designer.

No, Charlie St. Cloud is not the best film of the year or anywhere near it. It suffers from a tendency to resort to formula in regard to plot points, and it pulls the expected strings to bring out the hankies. If I seem to be carried away in my praise, it's because this is one of those rare examples of formula that surpasses our expectations. Which always comes as a pleasant surprise.