Jaime Marks Is Dead is an ambitious film that will have its faults overlooked by the audience because it is an independent movie. The movie is at its best when no one is talking. Some of the shots are breathtaking gorgeous, but the holes in the script take what could have been great story into a film that makes you feel just as lost as Jaime Marks.
The movie opens with Gracie, a young teenage girl, finding the body of a dead teenage boy, the often bullied Jamie Marks, near a creek. As someone who was bullied very early in life (not nearly to the degree what’s depicted in the movie) seeing that took me out of the movie and made me remember some memories I didn’t want to remember. In one bullying scene Adam, the main character, sees what’s happening to Jaime and does not help or ever had a conversation with him.
In the aftermath of Jamie’s death the life at the high school goes on seemingly normal, like nothing ever happened. It was as if a ghost no one thought was real to begin with disappeared. After school Adam visits the creek where Jamie’s body was found and he meets Gracie for seemingly the first time. After a brief conversation she invites Adam over to her house. (If only it was that easy to receive an invite to a girls house back when I was in high school.) While in Gracie’s room Adam sees Jamie for the first time, standing outside. To Adam’s surprise Gracie sees and has seen Jamie for quite some time. At this point you’re either going to go with the story or just turn it off.
When Adam leaves her room he meets Jamie and they begin a friendship. The biggest tragedy is they could have been really good friends if Adam ever had the courage to talk to Jamie while he was still alive. The idea of a lost great friendship is sprinkled throughout the film, but I think the film would have been better served if it focused more on that than the subplots about the courtship with Gracie, the new found friendship between Adam’s Mother and her new friend and the other “people” Adam and Jamie meet.
Some plot points were unnatural and occurred simply to move the plot, which took me out of the film (I was saying to myself, “Why would he do that? It doesn’t make sense for him to do that.”). I applaud the filmmakers and the financers for taking a chance on a movie they had to know going into it the subject matter they’re exploring are subjects most people do not instinctively want to see. There are few scenes of horror that feel a little misplaced, but the biggest horror was no one knew how smart and caring Jamie was; that Jamie had to create his own Shakespearean Tragedy in order to feel love.
Grade: 40-45 (on the 20-80 scouting scale)
