An Irrational Dislike

The reasons we come to dislike particular things are many and frequently obscure.  Not to say irrational, often having nothing to do with the thing itself.  I was recently reminded of this whilst reading Mark Kermode's book The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex.  Early on, he recounts his tribulations whist trying to see The Death and Life of Charlie St Cloud with his daughter at a local multiplex.  Now, whilst sympathising with Kermode over the fact that modern multiplexes combine ticket sales with popcorn sales, are all seemingly staged by pimply faced youths with no knowledge or love of cinema, and that they sometimes fail to project the film in the right ratio, I couldn't agree with his generous assessment of the film itself.  I fully accept Kermode's argument that films like Charlie St Cloud are aimed at teenage girls rather than cynical middle aged men like myself and I have to say that, as such movies go, it is decently made and acted.  I've seen a lot worse.  Now, you might ask exactly why I watched this film, bearing in mind that I'm not a teenage girl.  Well, it was, as I recall, a rainy Sunday afternoon, I had a bit of a cold and I was slumped on the sofa and it was on TV.  What the hell, I thought, it can't possibly be that bad.

To be fair, as I've said, by and large it wasn't.  Nonetheless, I still have a lingering dislike for it.  Upon reflection, I realised that this feeling had nothing whatsoever to do with the film, or the star, Zac Ephron, or the soft focus sentimental supernatural storyline.  No.  It all came down to the fact that the denouement of the latter part of the film - and I'll warn you now, I'm about to spoil the ending - in which, after the heroine apparently finds herself dead, yet her spectral form is still able to romance the hero, it turns out that she isn't dead, just in a coma on an island after being shipwrecked, (allowing the hero to rescue her), reminded me of the awful Bill Cosby movie Ghost Dad.  In fact, the plot device was identical.  Again, you might ask why I ever bothered sitting through Ghost Dad.  I'm afraid I have no rational explanation for this - it must have been a rainy bank holiday, or something.  I really don't recall the circumstances of my having seen this abomination and there really is no excuse for having sat through it.  But the fact remains that I did.  And promptly repressed the memory of having done so.  Which is why I have that lingering dislike of the Death and Life of Charlie St Cloud -  it dredged up all those repressed memories of that shameful episode in my film viewing history.