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In a small town, the body of Jamie Marks, a teenager nobody really knew or interacted with except occasionally to bully, is found by the river. His ghost is then seen by two high school students: Gracie Highsmith, who discovered the body, and Adam McCormick, the star of his cross-country team who becomes fascinated with Jamie. Adam then is caught between two worlds, the spirit and material one when he and Jamie begin a loving but platonic relationship.
Temperate in tone but screaming with subtext, "Jamie Marks Is Dead" climbs above the current glut of supernaturally inclined entertainment by dint of a hushed unease that permeates almost every frame.
Writer-director Carter Smith sets a brooding, chilly atmosphere, but he also writes opaquely vague dialogue and includes in a subplot involving Adam's mother (Liv Tyler) that goes nowhere.
It's a film that I liked more when no one was speaking, getting into the atmosphere of this world without having to deal with the awkward plotting within it.
August 26, 2014
Variety
The potentially ludicrous story is handled artfully enough here to cast an eerie but not off-putting spell throughout, though the ultimate point is more than a tad murky, and the desired poignancy doesn't fully come across.
The film uses its phantasmagoric conceit, a sickly-hued poetry, and eerie sound design to build metaphors for closeted homoeroticism and melancholic unfulfillment.
Writer-director Carter Smith got his start as a successful fashion photographer. But you wouldn't know it from the murky look of this generic thriller.
"Jamie Marks Is Dead" admirably refuses to hew to conventional horror tropes and is acted with integrity by its young performers, but the film nonetheless has a nagging pulse problem.