This is How Movies Should Be Made

Such a frustrating disappointment

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Spoiler alert: You may want to watch the movie before continuing much farther. I will say without giving too much away that the pace of the movie is slow, but worth the watch regardless. We're too used to the "action packed" fast moving white bread standard Hollywood fare for some to stick with a slow but well crafted piece such as this. But I found it anything but boring. Here's a spoiler, one you will encounter soon into the movie, but you may want to watch before reading my thoughts. I was thrown a bit by the hanging dead fawn. I may have missed something, but never to my knowledge was any allusion made of it in the film. It was a bit of a distraction, wanting to make sense of it while trying to take in the plot line. Here's my take on it. Unless someone was engaged in illegal hunting and too lazy to tend to the game during the movie's duration, the reasonable conclusion is that this was a victim of the driver. The brother does seem to be a bit of a thug type in his actions (pushing the mother out of the way to enter the house after beating on his brother, though the beating was provoked) so he may simply have been the hunter. But if run over it is evidence of prior knowledge of the drunk driver's carelessness (she is referred to as being drunk when she hit the mother by Adam) and was hung there as a cautionary message for her, apparently ignored. This makes the accident somewhat more inevitable, I think. And about that- the mother did back into the roadway at a fast clip, in a hurry, so even though there is little sympathy shown for her other than by the mother, the driver was not entirely at fault. One thing I must counter after reading another review. I don't think the relationship between Adam and Jamie has anything to do with homosexuality. It is a deep friendship that we see develop, nothing more and nothing less. That is the theme, seen also in the friendship, though too lightly explored, between the mother and the driver who "paralyzed her." Gracie's character is there to counter this conclusion. Adam is very interested in her sexually, though every encounter we see is abruptly- frustratingly, for him, ended prematurely (always due to Jamie's presence, in some way, but not because of the "gay thing" but the need to work out his presence on a very different level. Jamie first appears to her, not Adam. He is drawn to her as the person who discovered his body. But she wants nothing to do with him, she makes this very clear, and does her best to instill this feeling into Adam. Adam sees him and is drawn to him because he was sympathetic to Jamie's plight when Jamie was being harassed by the boys at the school, but he did not act to help Jamie, which is why he is compelled to help him later, out of guilt. Jamie is I think not so much jealous of Adam when he is with Gracie, but jealous of the relationship, before his friendship with Adam solidifies. And Jamie has a relationship with Frances which verges on something boy-girl, certainly very caring when he takes her from Adam's house. The love aspect spoken of by Gracie that Jamie needs is something beyond the sexual, the "love a man can have for a man" a quote from Miller's "All My Sons" referring to the bond of soldiers in war, nothing to do with sexuality, or beyond sexuality. I'll just sum up at this point. I see many levels to this film, with the relationships working in developing the theme that culminates in Adam and Jamie, their relationship and moving on with their respective paths. Quite an unusual movie experience in many ways, and well worth waiting out the pace of the film. Just one further note, concerning the "note." Somehow, according to some questions I have seen the upshot of it was missed by some. The big spoiler: Jamie did indeed commit suicide. Gracie hid the note because she did not want his death to be trivialized due to its being suicide. So, while Gracie could not or would not deal with Jamie's presence, as a ghost, she was sympathetic towards him, as a person.

Jamie Marks is Dead is an originally told downcast drama about two teens brought together after a classmate is found murdered in a rural town.Carter Smith writes and directs Jamie Marks is Dead, drawing inspiration and adapting Christopher Barzak's debut novel One for Sorrow.Jamie Marks is found murdered, naked and discarded amidst the detritus of decaying tree branches along the side of a creek. Classmate Adam becomes sympathetically absorbed in the death of the teenage boy who was not popular and often picked on. He and Gracie, the girl who discovered the body, become close from the murder when Jamie's ghost begins to appear to each of them.Cameron Monaghan is Adam, the classmate inexplicably drawn to Jamie's death. Monaghan is a budding talent and brings a realistic and unexaggerated angst to the role. Jamie Marks is Dead is about the melancholic connection of the characters and unfortunately Morgan Saylor's Gracie and Noah Silver's Jamie fail to deliver.Jamie Marks is Dead is original, moody and extremely dark. We examine the character's familial and interpersonal relationships through Jamie's death rather than being a suspenseful mystery to unveil the killer's identity. All the pieces for the plot are there but for some reason it never comes together believably. Adam's preoccupation with Jamie's death seems unfounded, and the character's evolution that yields the resolution seems premature.The story itself is laid out extremely slowly. Director Carter Smith uses this time to create a gloomy outlook of the characters' world through clear and decisive cinematography. The film is beautiful to look at, capturing the dark and austere bleakness of rural life and balancing it with perfect lighting for watchable scenes.Please check out our website for more recent reviews in FULL.

The first time Jamie becomes alive is in his afterlife. He consoles another dead girl. A girl no one cared about when she was alive. Completely mistreated by her parents. She is in perpetual limbo as she cannot forgive her parents for creating the hell on earth that she had to endure while she was alive. Adam gets to witness the maturation of Jamie as he begins to find his place in the afterlife. This is a fresh and thoughtful movie about what it means to be loved. Only in death does Jamie begin to feel loved by other human beings. He was treated like a piece of trash his whole life and literally pizzed on by others. Only in death, can Jamie begin to have a friendship, unfortunately he..is dead. Adam is not dead, and as much as Adam wants to maintain an emotional connection with Jamie, he has his waking life to live. It's a very sad movie. I wouldn't call it a horror movie. Definitely not a shocker. It's an intelligent, well-made movie.

It seems like no one has really seen this film aside from a very few, and I tend to not see films until I've heard enough reactions because, especially with indies like this, they always seem to, well, not be so good. This surprised me a whole lot. I thought it was going to be a horror film, and on some level it is, but it plays out like a coming- of-age drama. It reminds me of Let the Right One in/Let Me In in its slow pace, atmosphere, and pair of leads at the core. I think it's pretty fantastically directed, and the script, while not without its flaws, does a really good job setting up these characters and really giving some meat to the story. I strongly recommend this