Jamie Marks Is Dead

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.

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I LOVED this movie. It's about a couple of gay teenagers who don't get to know each other until after one of them dies. I don't understand why other online reviewers keep saying how sad it is, because to me it's marvelously positive, encouraging, romantic and satisfying. Those reviewers must think death is a big deal.

The story is fascinating and completely believable, which is extraordinary for a movie about the supernatural. The dialog is always perfect - economical and powerful. The direction, the acting by every actor in every role (especially Liv Tyler as Adam's neurotic mother and Noah Silver as Jamie - he's fantastic in a marvelously sweet, subtle and sexy performance), the cinematography, production design, sound, music, etc, could not be better. This is a fantastic movie.

The only huge flaw is the Frances character. She's unnecessary, contrived, unbelievable and very, very annoying. I almost quit watching when she became such a huge part of the story. The fact that I didn't, and that I'm giving it ten stars in spite of her, is testimony to how very, very good this movie is.

This is truly an inspiring story about something more than just being a teenage and how hard can it be for some people. It teaches us that we can find a true friend in the most unlikely of places, that that friend can be someone we never expected. Maybe, if we go deeper, this could be a way to tell us to not waist our time waiting for the right moment, because that moment is now, at every hour, at every minute, at every second.

It's not really a horror movie, but a sad coming-of-age one, with a fantastic and touching storyline, well-played characters and a peaceful soundtrack that makes it slow sometimes but never boring.

The title is very clear on one thing. Which doesn't mean we don't get to see the character (rather the actor playing that character) on screen. It's a very weird movie with a strange feel to it. It's tough to describe especially because our main character is very inactive and very closed to himself. But that makes him interesting (not only for the viewer but for other characters as you'll see).

You might not agree and find this "boring", which is a possibility and wouldn't be surprising with a movie like this. But if you can stay and stick with this, there is something there that you won't find in many other movies. For better or worse this is different!

I'll start by giving credit where it is due here: There are some really good shots, and the soundtrack also fits them pretty well. In this sense, I can see the artistic value of the film.

That being said, I felt like a lot of context was missing when it came to the story/characters. There were a lot of things that just left me asking "Wait, wtf is happening?" as a watcher who hasn't read the original novel. And maybe with that context, it would have been better, but having watched this expecting an experience with no prior research required, it fell very short. I couldn't figure out the lore of this world when it comes to ghosts, etc. If there even was any. I did appreciate those moments of stereotypical but effective hints in small details, but there seemed to be so much extra added here with absolutely no context to add any emotional depth to the story itself. It was a sort of "I want to like this but the only merits are in the aesthetics of shots and the use of music, I am not actually feeling any emotion for anyone throughout the duration of this story (apart from annoyance and confusion)."

At least it wasn't painfully long; I just kept hoping for something more than what was given. It might just be my personality, but no character was relatable. (And I'm not talking about the stereotypical Hollywood sense; I legitimately just found these portrayals unrealistic and forced, with no explanation and minimal to no context as to what the dynamics were to establish a lot of the "conflicts" that arise in the film.)

The book is probably better, because I can see where there was potential here, but the script, in my opinion, was mostly a waste of my time. At least I did get the nice music and pretty visuals, but still.