Starring Zac Efron and Amanda Crew. Rated PG. Opens Friday, July 30.

Romances usually focus on the female members of the species, but in Charlie St. Cloud male youth gets all the beauty light. Zac Efron’s chiselled features are the focus of many kissing scenes, and he does the clothes-doffing, around here.

More weighty matters are at stake right from the start when we witness the intense bond between Efron’s title character and little brother Sam (Charlie Tahan), who loves baseball so much, you just know he’ll be killed in the first five minutes. A championship yacht racer, big bro was just about to head off to college on a “sailing scholarship”, but five years later, he’s still hanging around their small Washington town (mostly shot locally, in fact), working as a caretaker in the local cemetery, and—true to his word—meeting Sam for nightly baseball practice.

Despite attempts at comic relief provided by nasty geese and a nonsensically transplanted cockney (Augustus Prew), it’s here among the headstones where the film’s gothic ambitions come into the misty, golden light. Honestly, if the filmmakers had found a way to work vampires into a theme of religious salvation and brotherly pep talks, they would have done it.

The sexy banter between Charlie and hotshot racer Tess (Vancouver’s Amanda Crew) is definitely in the Twilight vein, and it’s hard to reconcile that tone with the strange, quick cameos from Kim Basinger as the boys’ absent mom, Donal Logue as Tess’s cranky racing coach, and Ray Liotta as a very Catholic medical worker convinced that Charlie is alive for some important purpose. (Which makes Sam what, chopped liver?)

That said, the movie looks nice, its star broods meaningfully throughout, and teenage girls will leave the theatre with the notion that a mere hug from Zac Efron could literally save your life. Like they didn’t know that already.